Speciesism: The final frontier

Even the most politically correct and progressive have a blind spot when it comes to our attitude towards animals. It's time to acknowledge it and get over it, writes Katrina Fox.

Two hundred dolphins were lured into a cove at Taiji in Japan last month. Most were brutally slaughtered while others were chosen by marine park officials to spend the rest of their lives in captivity to entertain people.

The killing is planned to continue until March.

Four thousand sheep from Western Australia died on a ship destined for the Middle East on January 16, where temperatures on the boat were so high, the animals were baked alive.

And just last week Marius, a 18-month-old giraffe, was killed, butchered and fed to the lions at Copenhagen Zoo in front of a crowd, including children to allegedly prevent inbreeding.

These atrocities are but the most recent examples of the horrendous cruelty inflicted on non-human animals. Sadly, they are a mere drop in the oceans of bloodshed for the benefit of people. Between 50-150 billion land animals are estimated to be killed each year worldwide for food alone, while the bodies of about 250 million female cows are exploited so we can consume their milk, and as many as 115 million animals are used in vivisection lab tests.

All this violence is a result of speciesism.

The term was coined by psychologist Richard Ryder in 1970 and refers to a prejudice similar to sexism or racism in that the treatment of individuals is determined by their membership of a particular group. Just as less value is placed on certain people based on their sex, gender, race, sexual orientation or other defining characteristic, so too are animals afforded even less consideration and moral worth based on the fact they are a species other than human.

In short, speciesism is taking place whenever we justify the violence and exploitation of other beings by saying "they're only animals".

So insidious is the nature of speciesism that even otherwise progressive individuals and groups are guilty of it without recognising it. Speciesism in action is when:

- My fellow feminists decry rape culture and the control of women's reproductive systems while simultaneously posting pictures of the (now barely recognisable) abused and tortured bodies (or body parts) of non-human animals they've eaten for lunch, or consume dairy products that are created by the hijacking of the reproductive systems of female cows.- An ad like this, featuring a woman's bottom depicted as a hamburger bun is banned for being "exploitative and degrading to women", while the once living, breathing, sentient animal whose body was turned into the actual burger is forgotten. She or he has become so objectified and turned into a something instead of a someone that their suffering does not even warrant consideration, let alone outrage.- We call someone who has committed heinous acts that we disapprove of an "animal".

- We hold a sausage sizzle to raise money for a dog shelter, or a high-end meat-laden dinner to generate funds for marriage equality.

- Businesses that tout themselves as being "conscious" or "ethical" because they have developed outstanding standards in their relationships with staff, customers and suppliers and perhaps even implemented some environmentally responsible initiatives, have practices that involve animal exploitation or cruelty.

- You are horrified at another culture that mass slaughters and serves up cats and dogs for dinner but do not have the same reaction when it comes to cows, pigs, sheep, hens or turkeys.

Our excuses for speciesism range from "they're not as intelligent as us therefore are not deserving of moral consideration" and "other animals eat other animals so why shouldn't we?" to "animals are accidently harmed in the making of everything" and "plants are sentient too and we eat those".

Yet in a new film, Speciesism: The Movie, which makes its Australian debut screening in Sydney this month, director Mark Devries puts the case for debunking these arguments. In a fast-paced helicopter ride over the subject, the film features sound bites from an eclectic group of people, including luminaries in the animal rights movement, academics, medical doctors, lawyers, farmers, a holocaust survivor and a member of America's Nazi Party.

The film has been criticised in some quarters for its Michael Moore-inspired style and the age of the director (Devries was 20 when he started the project six years ago). Yet, ironically, it's more than plausible that many such criticisms are due to the deeply ingrained speciesism of its detractors.

In much the same way that campaigns for the rights and liberation of various oppressed groups of humans were ridiculed throughout history, so it is with speciesism. The very concept is so foreign to most people that they generally react in two ways: with anger or amusement. I have had friends who are passionate about and active in human-based social justice issues tell me how "sweet" or "adorable" my concern for animals is, yet would no doubt consider it patronising for their causes (of which I am supportive of) to be referred to in such a way.

Those who rail against the concept of speciesism often accuse its proponents of anthropomorphism (falsely projecting human qualities onto animals). Yet the sentience and complex emotional lives of animals has been well documented – from books such as When Elephants Weep and The Pig Who Sang to the Moon by Jeffrey Masson, Pleasurable Kingdom by Dr Jonathan Balcombe and The Cognitive Animal and The Emotional Lives of Animals by Professor Mark Bekoff.

Even if you can't spare the time to read these books, if you have any doubts as to whether animals feel emotions, watch this video of cows playing in a field or these bears, freed from years living in a concrete put at a US bear park.

We have run out of excuses for our inhumane treatment of animals. According to Professor Steve Garlick, President of the Animal Justice Party, 80 per cent of decisions made by parliaments in Australia affect animals, yet their interests are rarely considered. It's time to acknowledge the final frontier of social justice and refuse to be complicit in the exploitation and brutality of others – all others.

With 2014 touted as the Year of the Vegan, a good question to ponder is one posed by Edgar's Mission farm animal sanctuary in its tagline: If we could live happy and healthy lives without harming others, why wouldn't we?

Katrina Fox is a freelance writer and editor-in-chief of The Scavenger. View her full profile here.

Jay Somasundaram:

Yorker:

17 Feb 2014 12:32:59pm

No, I don't think so, humans are a "special case" of an animal in Katrina's eyes. One that is not allowed to eat meat, while all the other species are allowed. I think this "speciesism" is a floored and hypocritical argument, try again Katrina ...

Nein:

I don't agree with the author for the most part, but I think the difference she's indicating is that we have a choice, and we can create other sources of iron etc. that we get from animals.

Whereas animals cannot.

Anyway here nor there, really. Someof what we do to animals is cruel. Eating meat and drinking milk is not necessarily cruel. We should be encouraging humane treatment, certainly, but we're designed to eat meat and vegetable matter alike.

Crisplion:

17 Feb 2014 1:07:31pm

The point is that humans -are- capable of something that no other animal is: moral reasoning. So, the fact that non-human animals eat other animals does not make it hypocritical to question the moral basis for humans doing so. If it did, then your argument could be used to justify human cannibalism, infanticide and rape, all of which occur in the animal kingdom. Try again Yorker...

Adrian:

17 Feb 2014 1:38:23pm

But it's not clear what drives the moral imperative to *not* eat animals. In other words, if humans are the only *animal* capable of moral reasoning, how does this result in a moral argument against eating non-reasoning animals?

Crisplion:

"...if humans are the only *animal* capable of moral reasoning, how does this result in a moral argument against eating non-reasoning animals?"

It doesn't and I don't think that an absolute moral argument against eating meat is sustainable. (I'm a vegetarian, not a vegan, and I don't judge other people's choices.)

What I'm saying, is that you can't -justify- eating meat on the grounds that other animals do it. I'm also saying that an argument like that, if taken seriously, would be dangerous, because non-reasoning animals do all manner of things that, as reasoning animals, we would see as criminal.

JoeBloggs:

17 Feb 2014 2:53:40pm

Aria,

Actually Laughter is not a human construct at all.

Numerous species demonstrate vocalizations similar to human laughter. A significant proportion of these are mammals, including non-human primates, which suggests that the neurological functions involved in expressing cheer occurred early in the process of mammalian evolution.

Note too that studies on rats and dogs note these species express laughter though higher frequency vocalisation (beyond human ears) and/or in ways we would not assume as humans to be laughter, though it still being an expression of joy in these animals (aka laughter).

Aria:

17 Feb 2014 3:24:04pm

@Joe, Jimmy

Perhaps I should have been more specific - I was questioning Jimmy's earlier description of "Nature" as something that can "laugh" at something. This connotes some sort of derision or mockery of that latter concept, which "Nature" cannot feel. I commented because his point was about how we like to fallaciously impose human constructs on the world, but then he himself imposed a human construct on the concept of Nature.

Otherwise, I completely agree with your biological analyses of laughter as a behavioural phenomenon.

capewell:

marg1:

17 Feb 2014 2:27:58pm

Adrian - animals can still fear and feel pain and still understand when bad things might be about to happen to them. I believe animals do know when they are going to die and I personally do not want to be in any way responsible for that. I think the author of this article is correct in everything she says - that we as a species have rather grandiose ideas of our own self importance on this earth, that we think we have the right to do whatever we like to this earth and to use everything that lives on it for our own purposes. I believe this is wrong and the day of our reckoning is coming with the onward march of ACC. Pity we will take down so many other innocent species with us. No doubt I'll get a barrage of replies refuting my claims. Crisplion -I also totally agree with your post.

Jimmy Necktie:

you assume animals carry all the same baggage as we do with our fancy powers extrapolation and abstract thinking.

Animals do not "fear" death so much as have an overriding instinct to avoid death (at least until after reproduction, when some species actually stop eating and die - eg pacific salmon).

That is not to say they do not feel stress or that it is humane to inflict such stress gratuitously. There are ways to farm and kill without inflicting stress.

Humans *only* fear death because of said pesky powers of extrapolation and abstract thought. It is instinct that makes you pull your hand away from a flame, or makes you nervous of heights. It is abstract reasoning that lets you wonder about what happens when we die.

Luna:

17 Feb 2014 9:35:17pm

Actually, there is is a growing body of scientific research which shows that many species of non-human animals do employ abstract thought, and not just the higher mammals. There is also evidence of inter-species altruism. This would suggest that in fact many non-human species are indeed capable of moral reasoning - it just may not be the same as our human moral reasoning. And how can you say with such authority that animals do not "fear" death? Unless your powers of extrapolation are so much more advanced than the rest of us, I doubt that you have the ability to see inside their minds at the point of death to know exactly what the animal is thinking or feeling. None of this counters the notion of speciesism.

Snufkin:

17 Feb 2014 8:30:47pm

You are right. Animals DO know what's going on and I am saying that as somebody who has killed and eaten quite a lot of them, marg1. Animals oviously do suffer, much as we would in the same situation. Isaac Bashevis Singer said words to the effect that if we do not take the suffering of our fellow animals seriously, we can hardly expect similar mercy ourselves. (from God, fate, other people - I am unsure exactly what he meant). It isn't so very hard to be a bit kinder. When I was first told to start killing our food I watched my father. Even though he must have done it hundreds of times himself, it still took several seconds for the wether to die. I told him I would be shooting the sheep first, and he was inclined to dispute this plan, until I said to him: "If you want me to do it, that's how its going to be. Otherwise you can do it yourself or get someone else to." I think eventually one can become de-sensitised and start thinking of animals as being something like vegetables. But they are not vegetables. And some who have worked quite a bit with them, know that for a fact.Have a good one and thanks for your post marg1.

Yorker:

Crisplion:

17 Feb 2014 2:58:09pm

Yorker, insofar as I'm saying that humans are exceptional in being able to reason morally, perhaps I -am- being 'speciesist' (although I think the term rather silly).

I think it's perfectly possible to morally defend the practice of eating meat, although I choose not to eat it myself. I just don't think you can defend it on the grounds that other animals do it, as your original post seems to. It isn't that other animals are "allowed" to eat meat, as you put it, it's that other animals can't ask themselves the question of whether or not they're morally justified in doing so. We can.

Jimmy Necktie:

Adrian:

17 Feb 2014 3:31:19pm

@Crisplion - I agree with your position, the argument of using animal behaviour to justify human actions is flawed from the beginning. So I think we are on the same page.

Comments like that from Jimmy Necktie in this thread demonstrate the futility of this entire discussion. If one believes that "morality" is only a human construct, then trying to force your "morality" onto others is contradictory to say the least.

@marg1 - I have no doubt that animals can fear and feel pain. I love animals, and would never condone any cruelty towards them. Still, as many others have pointed out, the philosophical foundation of this article crumbles upon even the most cursory of inspections. Unless, of course one was to appeal to some sort of higher authority than human "morality" which opens up another whole can of worms.

Zing:

17 Feb 2014 12:53:33pm

Of course not. Unless you begin with the assumption that humans are somehow special, the author's "holier-than-thou" attitude doesn't even get off the ground.

Barring a few symbiotic exceptions, most animals would not sacrifice their own effort for the sake of another species. Given the author is the one rejecting this ugly reality, it would seem she's the one with a blind spot.

RGR:

17 Feb 2014 8:10:44pm

I understand the issue Katrina has is that it is immoral to eat animals, and ultimately I don't think it is possible to argue whether morally we should or should not put our interests above that of other animals.

But I don't think we have to decide this, as eating meat makes animals better off. Without meat eaters these animals would not be given life in the first place. So long as their life is better than non-existence, these animals are made better off by meat-eaters. And I think it's a fair assumption to say that a sheep or cow raised on a farm is generally happy, well fed and well looked after up to the moment they are killed. So long as farmed (or fished) animals are treated humanely I don't see how it can be argued that humans are being immoral by giving life to these animals.

As for basing an argument on photos of a dolphin cull, or by posting youtube videos of cows running in a field, I don't think that's an appropriate way of proving a point for a first year uni essay let alone a freelance write/editor-in-chief.

Marty:

17 Feb 2014 9:11:48am

Actually I have no problem with other cultures killing and eating whatever animal they want to , I am not about to try cat or dog but if they want to , good for them. As long as the killing is done in a humane way I dont care one iota. As for 2014 being touted as the year of the vegan ? On what planet? Seriously we get it you dont like meat and animal products , but here is a tip the vast majority of us do and will continue to do so . Back to your kelp and mung bean wafers and leave us alone

Jimmy Necktie:

17 Feb 2014 4:40:05pm

there is a facsinating doco on dessert ants that might open some eyes. Colonies war with each other. Individual members are treated differently based on their role. Some members are expendble others are not. All sorts of "isms" going on in nature.

naughtee:

17 Feb 2014 9:03:15pm

hi jimmy,

i LOVE ant docos, one point though, this is relevant to the various discussions going on...

you shouldn't think of the ants as individuals... more like cells in an organism, once you do that the idea of different types of ants being treated differently is not so surprising (or relative, at all, to us)... various types of casts have their own purpose, some fight some collect food some tend to the young, they're all part of the same organism (the colony).

i see too many people here (not you) attempting to apply our moral system to other animals, dualism is attractive but incorrect (i blame hollywood) :)

Hamadryad:

17 Feb 2014 5:26:38pm

Zing. War IS cannabailism. On an unimaginable scale. To suggest that any other species would engage in such a planned, organised, resourced, determined and efficient process of mass slaughter is simply ludicrous. Other animals lack the two essential ingredients. Hatred and greed.

Zing:

17 Feb 2014 6:37:02pm

"To suggest that any other species would engage in such a planned, organised, resourced, determined and efficient process of mass slaughter is simply ludicrous."

You clearly don't watch nature documentaries. Animals are perfectly capable of hatred, greed and spite. In many cases they can be driven to war both as a community or as individuals. Humans might have perfected war, but we didn't invent it.

Neither hate nor greed is essential to war. War simply requires two elements: 1. A conflict of interest; and 2. A willingness to use force to attain a goal.

Hamadryad:

17 Feb 2014 10:50:27pm

I have never, ever watched a credible nature documentary that implies that greed, hatred or spite in any way affect the way in which non-human animals, which have co-evolved over millions of years, do business. Lions take a wilderbeast. The lions eat the wilderbeast, the wilderbeast graze. There are no hard feelings.

Do yourself a favour, stop watching nat geo and tune into Attenborough instead.

Hamadryad:

17 Feb 2014 5:33:36pm

And Zing, by your 'reasoning', where organisms could only proliferate by subverting and eventuality eradicating other organisms, then the natural word would have had to consist of a vast compendium of different species which would then gradually be pared down more and more as the contest unfolded. That is not the case. At least it wasn't, until the intervention of 'modern' humans and the creation of their hideous religions (unfortunately that post didn't get past the censor). The world is experiencing a mass-extinction at the moment, the likes of which have only been seen a few times in the planet's history. Only this time it's not being caused by a comet or volcanic event, but at the hands of a single species. Us

Miri:

17 Feb 2014 9:26:09pm

Marty. "Humane slaughter" is an oxymoran. It's like saying "humane" rape, "humane" murder and so forth. There is no right way to do the wrong thing. The meat industry is the number one killer of the planet. There is more pollution from the meat industry than all the forms of transportation on the entire planet put together. Read on it, might surprise you. Oh, and 2014 is the year of the vegan, on this planet, yes. It's called evolution. It's called moving from eating animals and their products for gastronomic pleasure, to understanding the consequences of this unnecessary practice and moving forward into balancing the scales. And not just by eating kelp and wafers. Buy by eating an abundant, delicious plant based foods. We will not rest until balance and justice is restored my friend. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride :)

JonteJ26:

17 Feb 2014 9:15:40am

I currently live in China and speciesism is rife. I try my best to avoid animal products, but my extended family here see something peculiar about not eating meat. I'm almost always questioned over my dietary preferences and almost never praised. It comes from an engrained cultural attitude that the only people who don't eat meat are ones that can't afford it. I've even had people be outright hostile stating things such as "You're too picky! The animals' lives are being wasted because of you!". My wife's aunties have tried to sneak meat into the dumplings and then when I discover it, they say something like "It's only a little bit of pork. You need it to give the dumplings flavour", or "I thought ham was vegetarian". (As a side note, the word for ham in Chinese does not include the character for meat - so is sometimes thought not to be meat). I've met many young people who want to refrain from meat and other animal products, but are very quickly discouraged when their parents/aunties jump on them and say "Only poor people would behave such a way!". The biggest barrier to eliminating speciesism is not lack of people willing to try, but the fact that there are too many engrained customs/practices that make it very hard for young people to make the leap. If all your life your parents tell you that you need meat, TV ads talk about the benefits of regular red-meat and dairy consumption, it takes a very strong mind to disagree with that.

Aven:

17 Feb 2014 1:11:36pm

True, I faced this dilemma when I lived in China. I stayed a vegetarian for the first 6 months and then relented and started to eat meat (but never dog or cat) in the other 6. I did this because when I went to China I wanted to live in the culture and fully experience it. I went back to being a vegetarian once I returned to Australia and am now fully committed to being a vegetarian when I travel overseas. So I know it is tough and people do not understand the motivation. Although I was surprised that there are some young Chinese people who are expressing their ethics.

Desert Woman:

17 Feb 2014 9:17:44am

We are not over or under each other, other species or the planet. We are all a part of the whole and belong to it as our first peoples knew. The very basis of our understanding of ourselves is wrong and ultimately leading to destruction of the planet and all her inhabitants.

Mark O:

17 Feb 2014 12:34:17pm

One assumes that all other species are speceist, as all need to compete to survive, and consume other elements of the ecosystem top try to ensure theirs is the dominant species.

Our (female) planet seems to care less either way so long as some form of balance is maintained until the planet killing meteorite comes along, or she erupts the Yellowstone hotspot again (100,000 yrs overdue) to teach us all a jolly good lesson. Mother Knows Best.

Desert Woman:

17 Feb 2014 1:12:26pm

Mark, speciesism consists of devaluing other species, regarding them as unequals. It does not consist of not eating them. Aboriginees around the world eat animals but have ceremonies in which they give thanks and apologies to the animal before killing it. They respect them and take only what they need. Eating another does not necessarily imply competition and besides, many species favour cooperation over competition.

Desert Woman:

17 Feb 2014 2:32:20pm

Jimmy, every animal and plant has a place and a role in the planetary system and should be respected as such. Each species is unique in some way but that does not make any of them unequal as parts of the whole. When you remove any member of an ecosystem, you change the entire system.

Hamadryad:

17 Feb 2014 3:39:06pm

Well what's the use of a religious ceremony when the very idea of a god is utterly ludicrous?

At least the gesture of giving thanks to a prey animal for continued survival facilitated by the sustenance it provides is recognition of the value of life, ALL life, and an acknowledgement of the precarious nature of existence.

aGuy:

17 Feb 2014 2:05:49pm

Lol, like what? Your understanding of nature seems far to warm and fuzzy. All animals are in a constant battle against bacteria and parasites. Even animals that live in groups have internal fights to be the alpha.

Desert Woman:

17 Feb 2014 2:26:18pm

Sorry a Guy, your last point is simply not true. Some animals live by rank and competition for it. Others don't. Others again, such as wolves and dogs, employ a mixture where they hunt cooperatively and compete for breeding rights. Humans always have a choice.

aGuy:

17 Feb 2014 4:03:08pm

Canines are competitive. They will compete against other packs for territory. They will compete within the pack for Alpha positions (thus breeding rights) and even the young will selectively be fed by adults depending on relationship.

The hunting cooperatively is also a result of competition as they are competing against other animals for life. There are some very interesting dynamics on who takes front of the pack (where injuries are most likely) and why. Many want to appear as leading the charge but do not want to take the first lunge where they may be kicked by a much heavier beast.

Cooperation is a tool of necessity when it comes to hunting larger animals, not a desire choice in any canine group. The pack is there to ensure life based on selfish instincts of the individual to preserve life.

Michael Dixon:

17 Feb 2014 10:47:41pm

Up to a point, Lord Copper. aGuy's post is completely correct. Ask a zoologist. All altruism and cooperation in the wild is apparent only and has been evolved to maximise individual reproductive success.

All those selfless honey bees? Sterile daughters of the queen. Doesn't matter how many die, so long as the queen lives and pumps out new reproductive units, which are all very closely related to the worker bees. The workers have contracted out reproductive duties to the queen, to maximise their genetic representation in succeeding generations.

But it looks like kumbaya socialism to the casual observer. Mother Nature is a cold and callous bitch, if truth be known.

Desert Woman:

Hamadryad:

17 Feb 2014 3:44:09pm

You're missing the point aGuy. Conflict in nature is avoided where possible (uses up too much metabolic energy) and when it is undertaken, it is done so according to strict rules of engagement to ensure the continued survival of the organism, either through ensuring only the strongest genes are perpetuated or for the simple purpose of nourishment. In humans conflict emanates from the bottom up. That is, businessmen, politicians and religious figures (the lowest forms of life on the planet) invoke war to satisfy their own self interests.

Aven:

17 Feb 2014 1:19:52pm

Good point about natives. As an environmentalist I cycle past a plague of rabbits around Canberra. The animal lover in me looks in wonder on the incredibly cute furry creatures but the environmentalist wonders how much grazing pressure these cuties put on the land and are they stopping more native and endangered species from thriving?

The (ongoing) need to deal with feral pests creates real dilemmas for animal rights. Do you kill feral cats in central Australia or allow them to spread and push many different native endangered species into extinction??? As much as I am against the killing of animals at an individual or a group level, when it comes to one species versus many, I'd support the extermination of feral cats.

Yes, you would be right in saying that if humans didn't spread these pests around the globe there would not be a problem but blaming humans for the original problem does not offer a solution to it.

peter:

17 Feb 2014 10:29:01pm

Who put the introduced species there? People did. Therefore it is people who have the responsibility to remove them if that is necessary. Too often I see humans attribute some sort of malice to rabbits, foxes & pigs etc. I've seen farmers cause immense suffering to an animal he regarded as a pest.

GordonAitchJay:

17 Feb 2014 1:35:54pm

How far does this go? As long as it's practically possible, we should avoid harming others. We live in a very messy world, and inevitably we will be faced with moral dilemmas. We should always aim to cause as little harm - the least suffering and least number of deaths - as possible.

I'm not sure if cockroaches and mosquitoes are sentient, or in what ways they are sentient. Rats, however, clearly are sentient and have rich mental lives. Because of this, it's very important that they are not harmed. Humans don't like experiencing pain and discomfort, and neither do rats.

If anyone is interested, there is an excellent article by Brian Tomasik on the question of invertebrate sentience - http://www.utilitarian-essays.com/insect-pain.html

"It's not native" is a very poor justification; it's a morally irrelevant distinction. White Aussies aren't native to Australia and we cause all sort of problems, but that's not a valid justification to kill us. Though it was a moth, so I don't think it's a big deal. The moth probably lacks even a rudimentary mental existence, so there's no one there experiencing the crushing. Similarly, killing them means they can no longer experience the future when it comes, but I doubt moths experience anything, so there is no one there who is actually harmed.

Animals, including humans, matter because they can experience things that affect them. Pain and discomfort can be very unpleasant experiences. If we don't like unpleasant experiences, why would any other animal with a similarly sophisticated nervous system be any different?

"If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering?in so far as rough comparisons can be made?of any other being. If a being is not capable of suffering, or of experiencing enjoyment or happiness, there is nothing to be taken into account. This is why the limit of sentience (using the term as a convenient, if not strictly accurate, shorthand for the capacity to suffer or experience enjoyment or happiness) is the only defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others. To mark this boundary by some characteristic like intelligence or rationality would be to mark it in an arbitrary way. Why not choose some other characteristic, like skin color?" - Peter Singer

I also want to quickly reply to the objection that "other animals eat other animals so why shouldn't we?" I think people find that the most persuasive argument against veganism.

The argument is an "appeal to nature" and is fallacious. Just because killing and eating other animals is natural doesn't automatically make it good or moral (or bad or immoral, actually. It's irrelevant to us.).

bob:

17 Feb 2014 9:20:55am

When I walk into a room that has a sign, "no food or drink allowed", I often wonder are humans food. Katrina has only touched on speciesism in a shallow way, what we should really look at is if humans are only at one end of a spectrum of sentience, then perhaps we should also consider the contribution that the human body can provide to the dietary needs of others.

If we are going to have animals in the world then we need to accept that some of them will get eaten (murdered) by other animals, otherwise we end up with piles of rotting old aged carcasses, perhaps not even rotting (if small animals - bacteria etc - are forbidden too).

The alternative would be a world without animals which would be an environmental disaster. Veganism, like many things, is ok if only a small portion of the population follows it. If we all followed it then we would need more fertilizer, more genetically altered (all wheat is altered from the natural) grains, poisonous soy beans etc. There would be no animals recycleing crop waste into nutrients and so on.

Another problem with a pan-species sentiency recognition is that we would then need to prosecute animals that rape and murder other animals, maybe only as children or mentally unfit to plead but they still need to be dealt with somehow, perhaps locked up in a asylums until cured of their tendancies. Many a tomcat will find itself in a cage somewhere getting a strong talking too by a shrink.

Katrina, is it speciesism to consider humans as somehow different from other species when it comes to food and murder, after all we only have strong taboo against eating our kind which is basically the same as most animals and better than those that do. I'm sure the sharks off WA have no problem with human snack food.

Sea Monster:

ateday:

17 Feb 2014 1:27:59pm

We are not better, we are certainly different but not better.In fact as we are the only animals species actively engaged in destroying our only life support system, the environment, for our own gratification then we are probably a lot worse than other animal species.

naughtee:

17 Feb 2014 1:57:23pm

"worse" by who's standards? :)

we're part of a process with the illusion of control (and even worse a sense of morality), i look at humans with their self-importance and just think of them as the photosynthetic archaea and bacteria banging out all that toxic oxygen some 3 billion years ago, no doubt they had lots of discussions about reducing their impact on their planet as well... "think of the dolphins" they said, "what about the chickens" they wailed, fat lot of good it did them... no wait ;)

Peter the Lawyer:

CF Zero:

17 Feb 2014 4:03:08pm

Well that depends on whether we decide to do something to stop it occurring, left unchecked yes, most species destroy themselves with their own success. Humans are different, we can discuss the future and decide on a course of action.

If however we decide to destroy ourselves as we are presently doing then I question the value of any individual or the species because having intelligence then refusing to change behaviour is worse than not having the intelligence in the first place.

Baby boomers could learn something from the Salmon, I think we are the only species that regards the parent as more important than the offspring.

rufus t firefly:

17 Feb 2014 2:16:19pm

We're not 'better than animals'. We are animals. Biologically we're a member of the ape family (as any text book for the last 20-30 years confirms). And one of our abilities that most other animals don't have (and certainly not to the same extent) is the ability to make reasoned choices. Which puts a moral responsibility for our actions back on us, one that doesn't apply to most if not all other animals. To use some philosophic parlance, we're moral subjects, other animals are moral objects - what happens to them matters morally, but they aren't morally culpable as we, arguably, are.

Kimba:

17 Feb 2014 11:31:19am

You are not a monkey, you are not a lion. You are a human being with intellect that (supposedly) surpasses that of beasts. You are not a beast. Stop acting like one. If you want to continue devouring every living thing, note there will be dire consequences to the planet and future generations. Fresh water for one is essential and something a person cannot go without for long. Something like 70% to 80% of fresh water goes to feed farm animals. Some experts believe we will be at war over fresh water. The majority of grain, wheat, soy go to farm animals even being imported from third world countries while tens of thousands of those people die of starvation every day. Why are meat eaters so selfish and thoughtless? Why are they so stubbornly heartless to the suffering of other species? Many of us survive and thrive on plant based diets. Nearly everyday more and more imitation meats and cheeses are created by loving and caring individuals. Please stop thinking of, and loving only yourselves.

Kimba:

17 Feb 2014 3:27:52pm

We need to eat plants to sustain life. We do not need to eat meat to survive. That's the difference. And yes we are quite superior to animals in our ability to discern right from wrong, good from evil. Most of us. However animals are superior to us, or shall we say innocent of our capacity for destruction. They know not the lust for money or greed or prideful arrogance that consumes the malevolent industries of slaughter.

Jimmy Necktie:

17 Feb 2014 5:04:37pm

"They know not the lust for money or greed or prideful arrogance that consumes the malevolent industries of slaughter"

Poetic yet incorrect. Animals know lust and greed. They just don't bother with right and wrong, only humans do. When we say something is "wrong" what we really mean is it goes against what we all agreed (eg we agree not to murder each other). At one time we all agreed eating animals was good. If we now decide eating animals is bad, then it's bad. But only for that reason, not some natural law.

Sea Monster :

Sorry I also want to know at what point it became unacceptable for humans to act like beasts. Chimpanzees are pretty smart too. Is it acceptable for them to kill monkeys? What's the demarcation?

Regarding lions would you therefore agree that it would be okay to turn the live giraffe lose in the lions cage? Just so long as a human doesn't do it. Or given the lions need to be fed (can I assume you don't want them starved or released in Denmark to fend for themselves) why is it okay to kill a cow and not a giraffe?

If they were turned loose; would it be okay for Danish citizens to kill them in self defense?

Tim:

17 Feb 2014 5:02:14pm

Humans are capable of moral agency, though of course, some are borderline when brain damage,intellectual disability and mental illness are factored in, I would consider all the other primates to be borderline cases and as with animals like dolphins that might be on the brink of moral agency there is less imperative to incorporate that into food selection because unlike humans its hard for these animals to meet their nutritional needs through agriculture and food storage.You are on the money that this expectation is too high for some humans and really,the expectation should be something we put upon our ethically evolving human society.

Sea Monster :

Tim:

17 Feb 2014 5:04:31pm

that is very much debatable and even if we knew all the factors that led to developing our intelligence its a distraction from the actual points at hand because... so what?We have already done the evolving and are now in a situation where vast quantities of energy rich food are available to us to sustain the full capacity of our brains.

Aussie Sutra:

Luna:

17 Feb 2014 10:19:17pm

Actually, that's a bit of a myth, By that reasoning, if being a predator (and ergo eating meat/flesh) were the main source of intelligence, then it would be obligate carnivores, such as lions, tigers, etc. who would possess greater intelligence than humans, who are mere omnivores. Most paleontologists would say that a combination of factors paved the way for the evolution of the human intellect. One of the most important of these factors was learning to walk upright.

naughtee:

17 Feb 2014 6:05:29pm

jimmy baby, humans are a type of ape, chimpanzee is a type of ape, bonobo is a type of ape... they are all apes.

a quick search will help you out...

"Chimpanzees are members of the Hominidae family, along with gorillas, humans, and orangutans. Chimpanzees split from the human branch of the family about four to six million years ago. Chimpanzees are the closest living relatives to humans, being members of the Hominini tribe (along with extinct species of Hominina subtribe). Chimpanzees are the only known members of the Panina subtribe. The two Pan species split only about one million years ago."

Sea Monster :

17 Feb 2014 8:10:39pm

Given your insistence Jimmy maybe you can outline the source of your expertise. As I say most taxonomists classify us as great apes. If you argue with them your need to tell us why we should favour you. Also we share a later ancestor with the Chimpanzees than with other apes. Chimpanzees are more closely related to us than they are to (say) gorillas.

naughtee:

Jimmy Necktie:

17 Feb 2014 9:12:39pm

omg. the OTHER apes, there are four species including us.

We are not, as the original poster said monkeys, nor are we chimpanzees, orangutans, or gorillas, the OTHER apes. We are primates (of which belong Great Apes) and a different species to all of the above. As monkeys are not Great Apes, I went a level higher to Primates.

I have apologised for the confusing way I presented my case. I hope it's clear now.

naughtee:

whogoesthere:

17 Feb 2014 9:23:24am

I'm all for animal welfare. Animals can feel pain and suffer and in my view their quality of life should be taken into consideration at all times. But they are not human. I expect if the author had to choose between the life of a child, and the life of a cow, she'd pick the child.

Animals do eat other animals, and I doubt the entire human race is going to turn vegan anytime soon. To wish it was so seems idealistic to the extreme.

A more relaistic goal (and even this will be difficult) is for humans to learn to treat the animals we exploit with basic care so they have a decent quality of life, for however long that life is.

Terms like 'hijacking of the reproductive systems of female cows' and comparing it people being raped seem unlikley to me to help the author's cause.

Of course like most other problems the biggest issue is there are too many people to feed on the planet. I fear animal welfare will only make small steps in affluent countries until we reduce our own population.

There is a difference between animal welfare and animal 'rights', I believe in the former, but it is a different thing to the latter.

Peter:

17 Feb 2014 11:18:41am

Given that cows are continually kept pregnant and their new born calves are immediately ripped away from them - the males sent to the abattoirs, the females put on some ersatz food to grow them into the next generation of milk producers - how is it untrue or unrealistic to say their reproductive systems have been hijacked?

It describes exactly what happens. It's accurate.

A lot of people just can't call a spade a spade when it comes to where our meat and dairy comes from.

Applaudanum:

17 Feb 2014 11:52:04am

The less said about vegetable production the better, eh?

All those innocent plants, kept in unnatural conditions and forcefed nutrients to an extent they wouldn't 'to get in nature. Sprayed with insecticides that prevent the natural occurrence of bugs eating vegetation. Then the fruit, which the plant has grown in the utmost adversity as a byproduct of simply trying to get closer to the sun, is cut and torn from the plant and taken away, thwarting the natural seeding and regeneration cycle. The shame!

Tim:

17 Feb 2014 5:06:52pm

I've not met a person who genuinely held those beliefs about plants though I've met double digits of people who pretend to, tell me you'd have the same level of discomfort at mowing a lawns worth of rabbits/cats/sparrows etc vs a lawn full of grass.

Applaudanum:

17 Feb 2014 6:09:15pm

Such beliefs and the comfort and discomfort they bring are culturally conditioned, Tim. In the same way that meat eaters are culturally conditioned, so too are vegetarians and vegans. Any 'ethical' claims of one over the other are not absolute and revert to the cultural conditions the subject advocating a particular brand of ethics has been exposed to.

That our society conditions people to not bat an eyelid whilst mowing the lawn, in contrast to the conditioned reaction expected in response to mowing a lawn's worth of animals, reflects a peculiar species-ism of our own, namely, that the autonomy of beings with a particular cell structure is worth more than that of others. Vegetarians and Vegans often badger meat eaters because meat eaters don't value the autonomy of particular animal species as much as themselves. Yet, because there is no one out there at present willing to stick up for plant rights, doesn't mean that an only theoretical support for plant rights should be ignored on the basis that no one cares.

It would be a nonsense to suggest that we should only care about animals because some people think it's right to care about animals. Yet you've suggested exactly that in relation to plant-life. This very act, I'm afraid, confirms a nasty 'Fauna-centricity' of our contemporary age, and an absolute conviction that flora should be treated as an inferior class of life.

mike:

17 Feb 2014 8:19:36pm

Plants have neither brains nor nervous systems and are thus not sentient. Plants do not feel or experience anything, any more than rocks do. The fake concern over supposed cruelty to plants is just a lame effort to distract from the issues at hand. You might as well cite cruelty to rocks and strata while you're at it.

Aussie Sutra:

Applaudanum:

18 Feb 2014 8:29:00am

Aussie Sutra is right, mike. The prejudice against flora is based on the very things upon which they differ from fauna. It's an example of circular logic to suggest that flora are inferior primarily because they don't display the traits we recognise in fauna. It's not a fake concern at all, but a real attempt to unlock the underpinnings of the prejudices on display here.

It's also interesting you bring the rocks into the equation. After all, rocks have what might analagously be called a life cycle and migration patterns, it just all happens over a time frame that our intelligence doesn't generally notice. Remember, it is the rocks who will inherit the earth and it is the rocks who will achieve the ultimate communion as the earth spirals into the sun. Who are we to displace individual and small groups of rocks to suit our short-term, transient, agendas?

Pamela:

Jimmy Necktie:

17 Feb 2014 2:43:28pm

what an odd comment. Meat addiction? Seriously?

If our bodies crave meat, could it be because our bodies crave meat? As in that's their design? By the same argument does that make us also "addicted" to anything else (animal, veg or mineral) that we find tasty?

naughtee:

peter:

The Human body is 100% herbivorous. Every part of our digestive system is designed to eat plants and only plants. That's why animal products are the leading cause of human sickness.

Humans eat meat and dairy for reasons of taste, convenience, and habit. Necessity is not one of them. This is why there aren't vegans keeling over everywhere. This is why a vegan has a 3% chance of dying of heart disease, compares to 66% for a meat eater. This is why the countries with the highest dairy consumption have the highest levels of bone disease, including osteoporosis. The message you were given that dairy is good for your bones was a lie.

We thrive on plant-based diets. The largest ever study done of human diet showed that a whole-foods, plant-based diet can actually reverse many cancers and auto-immune diseases.

aGuy:

natureisn'tsonice:

17 Feb 2014 5:04:05pm

Cows continually kept pregnant is unnatural? What do you think happens in herds on African plains? - as soon as a female is able to reproduce, she's mated, ie, continually and there's no guarantee it won't be from a near relative if the same dominant bull/buck dominates for a couple of years!

Britomartis:

17 Feb 2014 6:08:25pm

Many of us are also aware of how our meat is produced and still choose to eat it anyway. I know there is a trend for vegetarians and vegans to claim that we would all eat less or no meat if we knew how it was produced, but I just don't see it.

Pamela:

17 Feb 2014 12:26:05pm

We are animals too. Humans are just another species of mammal. I'm sure a cow mother would choose her baby calf over a human child just like any other mother. Her baby is as important to her as ours are to us. And what you say about animals not deserving rights is exactly what was said about the slaves a century or two ago.

devilsdance:

17 Feb 2014 9:26:07am

nice article - good to get a different perspective.

I can also see a connection here with some of the inproven practices of much eastern medicine - the use of bile bears and killing endangered species for using the body parts in bogus "ancient" "medicine".

kenm:

Pamela:

17 Feb 2014 12:39:35pm

Thumbs up to kenm. Just like human ignorance, human cruelty is endless. I work in animal welfare and I see it every day. Dolphins in Japan and Denmark, Seals in Canada and South Africa, Whales in our oceans, the giraffes in Denmark, zoos across the world, many with thin, starving lions, bears etc; lonely elephants in concrete boxes or chained up and whipped for circus 'entertainment'; dogs and cats crammed into tiny cages on trucks for Chinese markets to be skinned alive for their fur and meat, Australian exporters sending live animals on horror ships off to be tortured to death in the Middle East and Indonesia (those who survive the trip that is). Pigs and chickens buried alive in Asia because of fear of disease, kangaroos tortured to death by yobbos in utes, their baby joeys stomped to death or swung and bashed against the bullbars, under their 'humane code of practice'. Kangaroos dragged behind cars for miles; body parts left along the roads, some hacked to death afterwards. Kangaroos found suffering with arrows through them. And on it goes. All perpetrated by homosapien - the so-called 'superior' species.

Redfish:

carbon-based lifeform:

17 Feb 2014 8:26:21pm

Pamela, have you ever seen lions killing off the offspring of the former pride male who was defeated?Killer whales that herded humpback whales into the killing zones back in the past?Spiders that kill the male after mating just for the food?

rufus t firefly:

18 Feb 2014 8:18:00am

Pamela - unless you know something I don't, I'm unaware of other species operating a market economy - so I doubt there's a profit motive involved, but there are plenty of other species that play with and torture their prey. 'Nature red in tooth and claw' as the saying goes.

The 'humans are just the worst' brigade appear to be so fixated on specific examples (from the office psychopath to wars) that they miss the obvious - that human history, social, cultural and technological development is dependent on the fact that we are a trusting, social, cooperative species. Hell, we can live in crowded conditions that would send other species mad, and we still don't kill each other. It would be hard, outside of the insect world, to find a more peaceful species.

And if that wasn't true, there would be no point arguing against animal cruelty (nothing would make a difference) and there would have been no progress towards extending moral values to other species. Yet we've been doing exactly that for some time now.

We do appear to be a species where our powers and abilities are a little out of kilter as we inadvertently and stupidly destroy the planetary conditions we depend on for life, but taken as a whole, we are definitely not a species who's defining characteristics are viciousness or cruelty.

We lean toward the bonobo end of the spectrum rather than the chimp. Now they're nasty.

JonteJ26:

Seano:

17 Feb 2014 10:29:40am

Still intimidating around other animals until you might pat them first. Best to remember to smile with your mouth closed at non-English speaking members of the animal family. When you do, keep the jaw slack don't grimace, it sends the wrong message.

Pamela:

17 Feb 2014 5:08:17pm

It's THEIR language. It's not supposed to be the same as ours to be good enough. This attitude of humans thinking we're somehow 'superior' never ceases to amaze me. It must come from religious beliefs or something. There is another word for it which I won't use here as it might be misread as 'offensive', even though it's not an expletive but is the truth about so many selfish humans. To think that other species having their own language is 'extraordinary' is a perfect example.

rufus t firefly:

18 Feb 2014 8:28:21am

"It's THEIR language. It's not supposed to be the same as ours to be good enough. "

No Pamela, that's not humans thinking they're superior. It's just people using words to mean what they say. You don't appear to understand what words mean. It's not splitting hairs to differentiate between different forms of communication and language. I can communicate without any language involved. So can you. So can other animals. When I use language I'm doing something far more complex. And very different.

Britomartis:

Gordon:

17 Feb 2014 10:52:05am

I believe we started small - squirrels rabbits and insects. After that, a tough hide and a big body were no match for stone tools and hunting in groups.

I'm all for ethics and avoiding cruelty, and I do take the authors point that choosing to be nice to species based on cuteness is not very well thought through. But, I don't believe we owe other animals any more than they owe us.

Dicky:

Gordon:

17 Feb 2014 12:27:47pm

Ethically there is no difference between eating a giraffe, spraying a cockroach, and baking to death the billion yeast cells that just caused your bread to rise. Once you start where do you stop? Wiser heads than mine have tackled this issue and it comes down to avoidance of cruelty or waste, vigilance, adoption of humane solutions wherever practical.

All of these things are mental constructs, existing solely inside minds evolved to promote the survival of the owner's genes, unavoidably at the expense of something else's. Few of us hunt giraffes, most of us eat bread, we all draw our own lines in between.

Tim:

17 Feb 2014 5:16:09pm

like the people professing to be concerned for plants I don't believe this is actually your position, are you seriously suggesting you would stop a child from kicking a bag of yeast with more fervour than stopping them kicking a dog because of the sheer numbers of life forms that might suffer? there is nothing to suggest that yeast is sentient and Im not aware of any large ethical movement that is concerned with the fate of yeast or similar organisms.

Gordon:

17 Feb 2014 12:47:12pm

No. Those possessed of mind should use it. If your ethics have you choosing to consume from further down the food chain that's fine. The quirks of a hunter's brain sometimes leads to cruelty : think of a cat with a bird for example. We can turn away from such behaviour ourselves by choice, and most do. Deciding who or what is going to die so that you may live could be a full-time job if you allowed it to be. Do you spend all day worrying about that or do you, lazily and conveniently like me, have a line drawn somewhere?

rufus t firefly:

17 Feb 2014 2:29:28pm

Gordon - try Tom Regan's Animal Rights book. It's pretty old, but it provides a useful way of working out a moral difference between a cockroach, a giraffe and a human being (your examples of moral equivalence, although I doubt your seriousness).

Tim:

17 Feb 2014 5:13:49pm

it isn't a level playing field in terms of cognitive capability or physical capability, we have agriculture, barter, food storage and advanced preparation techniques for plant based foods.We (well most humans and arguable society on average) have the cognitive power and rationality for moral agency, the understanding and empathy towards animals who may be subject to our actions.

Tim:

17 Feb 2014 5:25:10pm

That is very very much a false dichotomy , we have developed rationality and employ it occasionally, we have recognised the ability for other humans to feel suffering , have their hopes and dreams dashed, to fear death, to love offspring etc and whilst this is fairly par for the course as it benefits society for us to preserve other humans (evolutionary benefit) logic has meant that we realise select other species of animals can suffer, can desire things,can yearn for their mates and offspring etc but as Katrina has articulated , as rational beings in an ever evolving society we need to eventually apply this concern across the board.at present we gorge on animals we consider disposable and tut at people from other societies who consume animals we do not or at people who apply less harm to an animal (e.g. kick a dog to enjoy the reaction) than would be applied to an animal to prepare it for consumption as food.

rufus t firefly:

Tim:

17 Feb 2014 5:19:12pm

Not entirely sure what your point is.We can evolve in response to millions of pressures in tandem and can specialise towards being able to catch prey,tan well in the sun, absorb vitamins from plants and much more all at the same time, this merely indicates the historical presence of the pressures that shaped us, it does not indicate our ability or lack of an ability to subsist on plants or act as a compass to what is an ethically sound behavior, that is actually the job of rationality and I think Katrina is doing an excellent job of utilising that capability

Jimmy Necktie:

17 Feb 2014 8:33:36pm

Ahh, sorry if I misunderstood. I agree. I'm against factory conditions. I believe humans ought to be, well, humane. To me cruelty is another form of poor self control, and I see self control as the thing that makes us human.

Aussie Sutra:

17 Feb 2014 11:07:59pm

You are incorrect. Omnivores need to eat a wide variety of foods. You make the assumption that because we can eat one kind of food at some point, then we can exist on it solely. That is an unnatural diet for us.

Aussie Sutra:

peter:

17 Feb 2014 10:48:19pm

It's really important to come to a debate with more than pub gossip. Human teeth are designed to eat plants and only plants. As are our jaws, saliva, stomach acid, kidneys, intestines and colons. If you are going to run the 'teeth' line, Google "orangutan skull" and "gorilla skull". Both these primates, like us, are herbivores. Now look at THOSE teeth.

Here's to you:

17 Feb 2014 10:09:55am

Whether you're a vegan or a meat-eater, that's obviously your choice and only yours to make. Depends on your philosophy on life I guess. As some people here have already said, the welfare for animals seems only logical. If we are all pro-life then the attention paid to the welfare of animals should be natural but there are people that are not pro-life. No matter how much they say they are, the fact that they don't care some lives are killed and some are saved is proof of that but then some people have already touched on how do you define life? Is life characterised by conscious thought or is it life defined by the presence of organisms despite very limited cognitive functions. It's a never-ending cyclical conundrum and there's not going to be a definite answer.One thing for sure though is that we continue to consume at a rising rate. We want things fast and in abundance. One could argue that we have so much "choice" in what we can eat that the consumption of meat is not necessary but then we are ignoring our instinct to pursue pleasure but within in these times or sustainability and limited resources, it might be wise to start a collective discussion on restraining our thirst for consumerism. Everything in moderation is healthy but we want it to the utmost maximum.The issue of speciesism is unfortunate but when it is ingrained so deeply and sub-consciously into the natural behaviours of people, how can they be converted even when they know of the cruelty and the suffering of the animals that they seek out to eat for pleasure?

Tim:

17 Feb 2014 5:30:12pm

great comment !I am starting to reduce my hopes that humans will cease to treat animals the way we do out of pure ethical advancement and am increasingly convinced tech will outmode animal use far before that would happen. I imagine we will soon have plants modified to be rich in DHA,D3,B12 etc and this will provide massive benefits to impoverished communities and at the same time we will probably genetically alter the cell lines we will use to grow animal products so that they are lower in fat, carcinogens and cholesterol - eventually the two products will become indistinguishable (with the plants also being use to make faux meats) and humans will be able to discuss the ethics of animal consumption without the conflict of interest of looking forward to reheating the bacon in the fridge.

Huonian:

17 Feb 2014 10:17:45am

Here's a simple question, Katrina. Which farming industries use the most pesticides ? The livestock industries or those that produce your fruit, grain and veggies?

Pesticides are designed to kill living creatures on an industrial scale. And, even if you don't care that the creatures killed are fairly low on the food chain, they are food for the cute and cuddly animals that people care about. Billions of cute and cuddly animals die each year so that you and I can eat.

The reality is that there is more animal death in a plate of veggies than in a steak.

There are good reasons to eat less meat and, indeed, even to go vegetarian if that's your thing. But yours is not a sound one.

aGuy:

It is actually the livestock industries because at times they need to prepare feed and animals need to eat plants, taking over much more space than a vegetable garden.

There are non-pesticide methods of producing anything on a farm as well.

Vegans have less animal deaths on their hands because each animal needs to eat the many plants that the vegan eats the plants not the lesser weight end product. They cut out a part of the process thus saving energy and living creatures.

Still, I will keep eating meat because it is natural for us to eat it and most importantly to me, it tastes great.

Aussie Sutra:

17 Feb 2014 11:13:36pm

The major cause of environmental damage is from grain growing. No pasture fed animals need to eat grain. And without animals in the farming mix, all fertilization of plants must rely on fossil fuels. One thing is for certain, we would solve overpopulation extremely quickly if we all became vegetarians, because we'd destroy the global ecosystem very quickly, and the human race would die with the rest of the planet.

Mike:

17 Feb 2014 10:18:04am

I have had vegan eating habits since 1997 and have gone through a number of stages of thought in regard to this topic. While I can certainly understand the sentiments behind this article, I read it with a terrible sense that it was almost useless to even bother. Unfortunately, when confronted with these emotional pleas, the average response is akin to that from Marty (comment near the top of this thread). It essentially gets you nowhere, makes you seem to be the 'weird' one for not eating what everyone else does, and ultimately does not help animals or make anyone want to even try vegan food. As a physics analogy you are met with an equal and opposite reaction! I decided a very long time ago not to even bother pushing my food choices on others. I figure the best thing you can do to promote veganism is to eat that way without making a big deal about it and thus show how easy and normal such a lifestyle can be. Telling everyone how bad their choices are only serves to make you a gastronomic iconoclast. And I dare say that is actually what some vegan types want (although I am not suggesting that the author of this article had such intent). There does exist within some in the vegan community a narcissistic desire to be the 'super vegan'. Go to any vegan forum and see them debating over the use of honey, or which sneakers don't have animal-derived glue, or why mere vegetarians are apparently just as bad as meat eaters. It is enough to make you not want to use the term vegan for your dietary choices for fear of being lumped in with them. To be blunt, I don't really understand why someone would want to eat meat when they really think about where it came from, but I don't think it is my place to tell them not to either.

Gordon:

17 Feb 2014 10:57:40am

Well said. I'm a lifelong atheist but I abhor "noisy" atheists - find myself defending people's religious choices against them sometimes. I think anyone who thinks about these ethical matters can and should arrive at their own ethical position. But when it descends into competitive moral vanity it is very off-putting.

Tombowler:

17 Feb 2014 1:59:11pm

Well said. I declare myself agnostic, simply because I find it hard to associate myself with the intellectual hand wringing of the loud atheist. I have considered my moral approach to vegetarianism and conscientiously arrived at a position of omnivorous consumption without waste and seeking to mitigate cruelty.

This sanctimonious nonsense is absurd beyond words. The ultimate hypocrisy of failing to recognise the impact of broad acre cropping on insect life, herbivores and indeed the plants themselves, many of which respond clearly to external stimuli, is utter tripe.

MildMasanthrope:

Seems to me logic dictates a small potion of the population do better with no meat. Equally, a small portion do better with more meat.

What we do know is universality amongst a population is not a natural state. I suppose if people did a modicum of maths and paid attention to the bit about Gaussian Distribution, many of these inane arguments would never get an airing.

Then again, the Pareto Principle would suggest 80% of half decent thought would only come from 20% of the population.

If meat is not your thing then all power to you and good on you for recognizing it.

JoeBloggs:

"Humans are not an endangered species... and we already greatly exceed the carrying capacity of our habitat :-)"

Only if you make the incorrect assumption that our habitat exists solely on this one little blue planet.

As our species now as the ability to leave this planet and we are very close to having the actual and real ability to colonise our solar system (using orbital settlements) and utilise the vast and abundant resources in our solar system (predominately in the asteriod belt) we are no longer tied to this planet and therefore our habitat is inclusive of parts the solar system.

The likely reality is that we will grow much of our food in commerical styled processes (ie. in vats) within the orbital settlements using collected resources thus negating the need to have any animal farming in space, though we will perhaps grow plants for food.

This will remove the pressure off the environment on Earth in time once a critical mass of humanity has transitioned into being a space faring species. We just need to survive the next few hundred years.

Our civilization needs to live long enough to develop the technologies to be self sustaining and self sufficient if we are to become, as Arthur C. Clarke said, "Guardians of the Galaxy".

Betie:

Hudson Godfrey:

17 Feb 2014 10:42:57am

As far as we can tell an animal has every right to be treated humanely, to be allowed live to the best of its ability. Yet whenever we defend human rights we don't find it necessary to pretend that the minimum standard should be one anyone very much enjoys so much as to say it precludes suffering. I don't think that it is speciesism to say that extends to acknowledging we have different places in the food chain, or that nature itself is often cruel in unavoidable ways.

Where I'm with you therefore isn't on the case of the Giraffe being slaughtered, or even on the unfortunate existence of zoos if they mean to preserve endangered animals, but it is in the case of the bears, the sheep and the dolphins.

The matter here still seems to be persuading humans that the arc of progress bends away from violence and cruelty in all things. We'd be kidding ourselves to think that animals' opinions matter in the sense that they might influence outcomes they experience whenever they encounter us humans. Yet there's always going to be that certain harshness at the boundary between our need for nourishment and our desire to avoid cruelty. What we see in some extremes is transgressive and I've tried above to highlight cases where we've nothing to gain from being more cruel than we need to be. Those to me seem to be the worst of all possibilities, the place to start, and the one where our sympathies align. Telling me I need to think twice about the cruel ramifications of the head on my cappuccino stretches credulity!

Transcend:

I am not a vegan/vegetarian, and I think this article has attracted a bit of negative reaction because if its lean towards pro veganism, but I also agree with a lot of its themes.

I do not think the main message here is about 'going vego'.

Dolphin hunting, bear bile farming, and inhumane slaughter practices are among a number of ways humans have treated animals disgustingly.

Yes animals eat other animals, that's natural, but they do not take more than they need or mistreat them for long periods of time the way we often do.

I would say to the author that I agree we are desensitized and/or ignorant to animal suffering, and anyone who is vocal about the treatment of animals is instantly vilified by the majority mindset.

The way I would suggest to make a change, is make people realize the way all species interact in nature (most of us are disconnected from how food gets to our plates) and support more sustainable and cruelty free farming practices.

OUB :

tony72:

17 Feb 2014 10:44:55am

I am personally against vegans who wilfully slaughter innocent fruits and vegetables........

Sarcasm aside Katrina, where do you draw the line and to what lengths would you go to stop this "Speciesism". Are you going to jump in-front of a lion in Africa holding a carrot and try and talk it out of eating a wildebeest, or maybe jump in the ocean and politely ask a great white shark to stop eating the surfers.

Im happy for vegans to keep to their lifestyle, but please stop preaching to others when your just as guilty for eating living things.

Matthew:

17 Feb 2014 11:58:00am

There is no need to draw a line. You do the best you can to reduce suffering. Eradicating factory farming is a good place to start. An individual can very easily contribute to this goal by not eating meat. I am hardly going to reduce much animal suffering by trying to reform the world's carnivores. There is no perfect solution. But huge valuable gains to be made.

Machiavelli's Cat:

Tim:

17 Feb 2014 5:36:02pm

this is the strawman levelled at veganism in every related comment thread, that veganism seeks to avoid harming "living things" - this is not the case at all, veganism recognises sentience in much of the animal kingdom and for the sake of caution extends the assumption of it to the animal kingdom as a general rule. yeast,bacteria,plants and other organisms with no evidence of sentience are not included and Im yet to meet a person who really believes they are sentient and actually acts accordingly

GJA:

17 Feb 2014 10:49:24am

While I understand and can appreciate the philosophy, I think veganism goes a bit far. More extensive take-up of a vegetarian lifestyle would provide great benefits to the environment, and I'm sure my overall health would be improved. But I think the bees are not put out if they share their honey.

leafygreens:

Why is a broadacre soy monoculture better than a paddock full of cows if you acknowledge the rights of the lifeforms that previously inhabited that area?

Why is modifying the hydroscape for rice & cotton cultivation better than daming creeks for pasture for meat and leather?

Destruction of habitat and reduction in biodiversity is 'bad things being done to the environment' too :-)A pre agriculture lifestyle of nomadic hunter/gatherers is sustainable only for a tiny fraction of the current numbers of humans. We dont get to return to the Garden of Eden

Bears raid bee colonies for honey, as will primates.Bees pollinate the majority of food crops.. are they enslaved for your canola? Fruits? Peas& beans?

GJA:

17 Feb 2014 12:58:30pm

We can provide more food for more of the world's people with less use of land and water than we can from the production of meat. Cattle are a known source of a signifcant amount of the world's greenhouse gasses. Pigs require vast sewage sequestration and treatment, and when breaches occur the damage to waterways is enormous. The assumption that a vegetarian lifestyle requires we become nomadic hunter/gatherers is just stupid, first because we don't need the 'hunter' component and second because vegetarianism isn't 'pre-agricultural'.

Yes, bees are useful to human agricultural production and bears and primates, including humans, like to consume their product. What's your point?

leafygreens:

Vegetarianism is still speciesist. Speciesism is the topic of the day.

A monoculture block of plants deprives the wider biologic community of habitat and permenently modifies the land use to our needs, despite us knowing it will result in death and dispossession.

Hunter gathering (plus or minus the hunting for meat..) has to be seasonally nomadic to be sustainable or you simply eat an area out and starve yourself. There are few places left on earth so un modified that we could still do it and too many for all of us to do it. Last time we could there was only a few 100K of us, before we discovered agriculture..

Back to point one... agriculture (plus or minus meat) means other species are displaced, or subverted, to feed ourselves. In doing so they have had their rights removed. Speciesist invasion/ enslavement.

Bees do mind, or they wouldn't defend the hive with their lives. They don't 'share' honey with us, it is taken from them. They seem to get over it and get on with rebuilding and restocking, but that's just about survival. It is a huge investment in time and energy to collect pollen and make honey, for the nourishment of their offspring, and we steal it for ourselves. We may provide them with crops and homes and select for passive temperement, only so we can take their honey.

Aussie Sutra:

17 Feb 2014 11:25:03pm

No you cannot feed more people with plants than you can with meat. Pastured animals turn grass, which humans cannot eat, which can grow on marginal land where other crops cannot grow, into the highest density nutrition available...meat. The amount of labour required to supervise herds is miniscule compared to that of planting, raising, and harvesting a crop. Pastured animals are also mobile, so can be easily moved from one location to another. Not so with crops. I will agree with you that factory farming needs to be stopped, and animals need proper caring for, but environmentally speaking, what is causing the largest destruction to the environment is not the raising of animals, but the farming of vast tracts of monoculture crops.

If you don't believe me about the efficiency of raising animals versus crops, then we can run a test. I'll run a few goats on my quarter acre of land, and you grow a wheat crop on yours, and we'll see who is still alive after one year.

Gordon:

17 Feb 2014 12:59:01pm

Spot on. The idea, most particularly in Australia, that running a few range animals for meat on country that could support little else is somehow worse than trying to grow a crop there - with all that entails - is nuts. A euro-style feedlot supplied by acres of intensive soybean farming is not the same as the Australian rangeland.

Tim:

17 Feb 2014 5:38:57pm

certainly there is terrain not so suitable for large crops but the idea is that a plant based planet (human food wise) will have a net environmental gain on the way we are set up now as well as addressing ethical concerns

Tim:

Viking:

17 Feb 2014 1:14:40pm

The vegan take on bees is that beekeepers kill bees during hive inspection and honey robbing.I'm a beek myself and yes we do. We try and prevent it as much as possible for the good of the hive and ourselves (nothing sets off anger in bees as much as pheremones they release when squashed or when they sting).I can personally moralise this against the fact I rescue wild swarms from peoples gardens/houses which would otherwise be eliminated by an exterminator.

Jimmy Necktie:

17 Feb 2014 5:32:41pm

Who knows? Perhaps the bees recognise the symbiotic relationship and are ok with the odd crushing as long as, like you say, you try to avoid it if you can. They may have a similar rule about stinging you.

IanM:

17 Feb 2014 10:56:39am

"Our excuses for speciesism range from.....plants are sentient too and we eat those. Mark Devries puts the case for debunking these arguments" So "speciesism" is an appropriate slur when eating some species, but not others? To paraphrase George Orwell, some species must be more equal than others, which is what Fox is criticising in others. It would seem even Katrina Fox and Mark Devries are prepared to eat some species (speciests!); the argument is really about where to draw the line. Given we all accept that there should be a line (not many advocates for cannibalism out there), perhaps Katrina Fox's case would be better put without the attempt to smear her opponents with perjorative nonsense like "speciesism".

Tim:

17 Feb 2014 5:42:23pm

humans do not use the behaviour of wild animals as a yardstick for acceptable human behaviour. do you fling faeces and make offspring with your own children? Do you refuse to walk on land until the fish join you? most other animals lack the cognition to understand their impact (the suffering caused) to other animals and lack the physical ability to procure or digest other foods.

Dave:

18 Feb 2014 12:42:53am

Tim,

>>Humans do not use the behaviour of wild animals as a yardstick for acceptable human behaviour.>>

That's true, and I'm not suggesting we should. What's your point?

My point is that Katrina cannot demand a certain standard of behaviour from humans on the basis that 'we're all animals anyway', while simultaneously excusing every other animal from meeting that same standard. It makes no sense.

There is absolutely nothing hypocritical or unfair about humans eating other animals. Nothing. We're just doing what nature gave us the tools to do, like every other carnivore, herbivore and omnivore on this planet.

When is Katrina going to impose her high moral standard on the rest of the animal kingdom and persuade them to stop killing and eating each other? I haven't had an answer yet.

nevvvv:

17 Feb 2014 11:10:32am

I am actually sympathetic to the author's point of view. However, I don't see the point of pushing a cause that's completely unrealistic. This holier than thou attitude in my view is a pretence that avoids the real issue that face humanity.

The fact is the earth is completely over populated. Australia is over populated. If we continue on this path humans have no choice but to increase factory farming of animals, strip the seas of its natural resources. Animals have a very bleak future unless we deal with the human population crisis.

Mike:

17 Feb 2014 2:40:00pm

Yes that lies at the heart of the problem. Overpopulation has an interesting twist - apart from domestic pigs, most meat in the Third World comes from animals that range and forage in lands that cannot support the growing of food plants. Goats are actually the world's most eaten animal, with cattle a close second.

Here in the West, the Dust Bowl in the USA arose mostly as a result of cutting up the Praries into too-small arable farms that replaced a previously sustainable supply of Bison and "Antelope". These lands now produce vast crops but at the cost of government subsidies, GM plants and a vast river of fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides dumped on the poisoned lands. It looks as if Africa is going to go the same way.

Now, if "sustainable" range feeding animals were to disappear overnight, hundreds of millions or even billions would rapidly starve. Whenever I mention this to a vegan their puzzled expression indicates that this concept has never crossed their minds.

MJLC:

17 Feb 2014 11:17:38am

I consumed Fox this morning and, to be honest, if it has any nutritional value I'm certainly finding it elusive. The flavour has strong overtones of tripe and blubber, and the aftertaste reminds one of (headless) chicken.

We may very well have run out of excuses for our inhumane treatment of animals, but inhumane treatment of readers seems to be alive and kicking.

Tania:

17 Feb 2014 11:18:45am

Thank you so much for bringing to light what so many people do not even consider in their day to day. I'll never forget when I was a child, talking to my brother about dolphin traces in tuna. He turned around and said "Why are you so sad for the dolphin, but not for the tuna?" Absolute turning point.

Geoff Pape:

17 Feb 2014 11:21:34am

Humans are starting to come around. Although no as quick as most of us would like. So many years of brainwashing takes time to undo. I mean grown men drinking milk and considered normal by society! And from another species no less! Females raped and their babies killed, and all so the dairy industry can keep the population under control with their fear tactics of "you need your calcium". We humans are so easily controlled by the animal abusers. But most people don't like to be known as fools. So perhaps this will be what causes the change in those people who "can't do without THEIR steak and cheese" to break free of the Matrix world that has been pulled over their eyes. The rest of us are quickly waking up to a realization that animal suffering and murder can NEVER be humane, there is no need for it, and we can do something about it every day by what we put on our plate.

Tiger Tim:

17 Feb 2014 11:23:30am

Marius (who was 2 years old, not 18 months) was not killed in front of the crowd - he was euthanased behind closed doors. It was advertised they were going to perform the autopsy (which is mandatory, regardless of circumstances of the death) and general public could observe if they wish. This is not uncommon in European zoos.

As for "..allegedly prevent inbreeding", with such mall breeding stocks in their program, it would be cruel to allow inbreeding, which would likely cause physical and mental issues with offspring. Unfortunately other European zoos were not able to accommodate Marius for various reasons which left little option. The zoo also pointed out they knew as soon as he was born, Marius could not remain in the zoo, within 2 years, they would need to find a new home for him or he would need to be euthanased. Meantime, they gave him a happy life and hoped something would come up.

It seems contradictory that on that same day, millions and millions of people happily tucked into their steaks, etc without a thought but one giraffe providing natural food for natural predators is an outrage.... really?

Tiger Tim:

18 Feb 2014 8:57:44am

However, but not killing the animal, it goes on to inbreed with the group and causes health and well being issues for later generations - at which time do we then euthanse the next generations because they are deformed?

Granted, in the wild, this giraffe would naturally migrate to another group. This isn't possible in this scenario because the other groups share the same gene pool.

JoeBloggs:

Do they realise that the end destination of their cattle truck trip is a slaughter house? would we know any better considering the alien species would be vastly more advanced than us?

Or would we live happy little lives and then before we knew what was happening end up dead?

While not suggesting alien abductions are real, or not real, events the allegations suggest that the humans involved have no ability to move or respond to what is occuring or even clearly recall the event. An ideal and 'humane' method of harvesting a species if you ask me.

Mike (the other one):

The one thing that all these 'clever' bleeding hearts never consider (or if they do, they absolutely will not acknowledge it) is the profound effects of overpopulation on this planet.

The single biggest cause of the destruction of other species on this planet is caused by land clearing, you know, the sort of land clearing that makes way for crops for vegans. It would have been a miserable demise for the animals that once lived there, it is permanent and doesn't give any of the species that once lived there a chance of recovery.

I wouldn't mind betting that the very same bleeding hearts of the ilk of the author are the same bleeding hearts that want to let all the refugees and boat people into Australia (it would be interesting to do a survey) but allowing that to happen would cause a whole lot of land clearing wouldn't it?

It's about balance and so many of these (man made) issues that concern people so much are directly related to overpopulation. Speciesism is not the final frontier, we are omnivores. The final frontier or rather the new frontier needs to be the addressing of overpopulation in political debate the world over.

Aven:

17 Feb 2014 1:31:41pm

the sort of land clearing that makes way for crops for vegans - where is your reference to this? Land clearing is a problem but happens in a lot of tropical countries due to the method of growing crops (e.g. slash & burn agriculture) or elsewhere to grow monocrops for export (e.g. biofuels). Land is also cleared for pastures. A lto of land has been historically cleared for multiple crops but that was before veganism was widespread. So can you statistically prove your statement??

ateday:

jash:

17 Feb 2014 11:39:32am

I have always believed animals deserved better but it really hit home when watching Tom Cruise's 'War of the Worlds', where humans were ruthlessly harvested for their biology by the alien machines. This was depicted so brutally and mercilessly that I couldn't help but see the comparison. If animals shared our level of consciousness, they would feel the same horror. Just because they don't, doesn't mean we should continue the slaughter.

EricK:

17 Feb 2014 11:41:52am

This subject came up for discussion in a group of about 25 at uni a couple of years ago. In the end, nearly all of us agreed that we ate meat because it tastes good - the other reasons might help to justify it if we have to, but if it didn't taste good we probably wouldn't eat it ...So engaging in ethical/rational arguments might just be a waste of time Katrina if that's what we really think?

Jimmy Necktie:

17 Feb 2014 1:43:29pm

"we ate meat because it tastes good"

And why do you suppose it "tastes" good? Because your body recognises it as a valuable food source. Our "tastes" encourage us to find fat, sugar and salt as these were typically hard to find in early times.

Aven:

17 Feb 2014 5:05:19pm

And why do you suppose it "tastes" good? Because your body recognises it as a valuable food source

Most of the lifestyle diseases we have in developed countries (i.e. obesity related diseases) are due partly to the over-consumption of meat (and therefore solid fats).While humans are omnivores, this does not mean you must eat meat with every meal. Indeed with diet diversity it is quite possible (as has been stated by nutritionists all the time) to get all your nutrients from a vegetarian diet (bit more complicated for a totally vegan diet).

Jimmy Necktie:

17 Feb 2014 7:01:25pm

I agree. It proves my point. Meat, fat and salt are no longer scarce but evolution doesn't know that yet. We are still "programmed" to favour them, which we percieve as "tasting good". Luckily, as humans, we can use reason to override instinct. Some of us.

paul:

17 Feb 2014 11:42:12am

It is a source of wonder that people who cannot find a difference between a human and other animals should then present themselves as being morally superior. This is a purely ethical argument that has not reference knowledge. If you feel that eating animals is wrong that is fine. However, you can be a vegetarian without having to abuse everyone who is not. That is a moral failing in itself.

Tim:

17 Feb 2014 5:50:14pm

its not the failure to recognise the difference between species, its recognition of the relevant cognitive criteria to be able to suffer or enjoy existence and thus be worthy of moral consideration. as with a discrimination like racism, yes there are differences between people of african descent and european descent the problem is that racists can't discern which are actually relevant criteria and significant grounds to exclude a person from rights, the colour of a persons skin should define their right to participate in our society and the markings on an animals fur shouldn't define whether they can live a life of trauma prior to premature death for consumption by omnivores

Steve_C:

17 Feb 2014 11:54:09am

So; what happens when the 'meat' products that are currently being grown in laboratory conditions, attain full industrialised levels of production?

Does it solve the 'dilemma' to have meat grown in a way that takes the living, breathing animals we currently exploit out of the equation; or does it create a whole new set of 'dilemmas' for those of our species who just can't bring themselves to embrace something "new"?

Meanwhile, I watch my fellow Australians reefing well established plants and trees out of the ground - whether it be in then yards of their own properties or along the route of some new road or expansion of an existing thoroughfare without the merest thought for the animal life that subsists off the plants they treat with the same level of consideration that they give to any other life form - apart from themselves that is!!

Once upon a time, humans may have felt the need to kill in order to live; but as an integral part of that, they paid respect and homage (as much as today's self-centred and egotistical snots would like to lampoon anyone who might acknowledge such a concept) to everything that gave them life.

They also (importantly) seemed to be able to use every part of the animals they needed to kill in order to survive.

The humanity of today is a bulldozer. An unthinking and uncaring bulldozer - apart that is, from the egotists, opportunists and self-serving crooks who manipulate 'the rest' for their own ends.

For however long that remains the case, the rest of this planet is likely to suffer.

If there's intelligent life on other Worlds out there... they ought to be very, very concerned that we're trying to identify planets with "Earth-like" conditions; because once we've spotted one, we'll do our darndest to get to it - and once we have, any living thing on that planet will be treated just like life here!

Chris:

17 Feb 2014 12:12:58pm

What the animal liberation people propose is absurd, animals are not equal to humans in any meaningful way, particularly in the most important of the distinguishing factors: the mind. Humanity has evolved over millions of years as a predatory species that exploits whatever it can whenever it can get away with it. It is in our collective best interests to allow things to continue mostly as they are. I am an advocate against animal cruelty, but I do so with the knowledge that an animal's rights are always subservient to a humans when there is a conflict of interest. We need to stop romanticising animals (and ourselves) and look to the truth of the world that we live in.

Ummm:

17 Feb 2014 12:59:58pm

Chris, the human mind differentiates us from animals, but not necessarily in a way that we should be proud of.

Yes, the human mind is capable of rising to great heights, but it can also sink to diabolical depths and lead to cruelty and depravity that no animal is capable of. I seriously wonder whether humanity, as a whole, lives in the psychological 'light' or in the 'darkness'. Look at places like North Korea, where people are tortured and killed because someone doesn't happen to like them, and think of all the instances of torture and cruelty occurring all over the planet. To be truthful, probably most of it is happening to defenceless animals, but where humans can get away with it, a lot of them seem to delight in torturing each other in various ways too.

So, even if we are more intelligent than animals, are necessarily better, or simply better at being diabolical?

Chrism:

17 Feb 2014 2:49:45pm

to Ummm,

I think you fail to see the implications of your own observations.

The things you talk about, the light and the dark, are value judgements on different aspects of our own evolved nature. We are capable of helping each other and killing each other, of building or destroying.

We humans are the only animals capable of looking at the potential range of behaviours and trying to voluntarily limit ourselves to a subset of these behaviours which we label as good, rejecting others as bad, depraved, the dark.

No animal can act in a depraved way, simply because they have no understanding of the concept. They do not exercise self control, or try to do the right thing. They just do whatever seems natural to them at the moment. That doesn't mean that what they do is not awful by human standards: Laying eggs in the living body of another animal, stalking and killing other animals, killing your new mates existing offspring; the natural world is replete with horror stories.

When you say that some people are depraved you are praising humanity because no other species even attempts to live ethically.

Ummm:

17 Feb 2014 4:30:12pm

What you say is true Chrism, but I think that a lot of animals have a natural 'sweetness' that humans don't. Think of a cat sitting purring on your knee (in pure bliss) or a dog greeting its master when he/she comes home (unbridled enthusiasm). Animals seem more pure somehow and just feel what they feel and I would think they have less (if not no) actual malice, or intent to cause harm just for the sake of it.

Look at a bumble bee, buzzing around collectin pollen for its 'tribe'. Peaceful and hard working. The only thing it would sting is a human trying to steal the product of its hard labour.

Chrism:

17 Feb 2014 5:27:24pm

"natural sweetness" is simply anthropomorphism as is your idea that a cat is in "pure bliss" when it purrs.

Purring in a cat or enthusiasm and loyalty in a dog are just adaptive behaviours that help the animal survive in it's environment - human domestication. Dog's that behave in ways that generate positive emotions from humans have a much better chance of breeding so dogs have become adept at eliciting anthropomorphism.

Ummm:

17 Feb 2014 6:16:12pm

Maybe Chrism, but I still think that animals are more pure than humans. For example, I, as a human, can decide to be nice to you, or decide to do something horrible to hurt you because I might be in a bad mood or something. So I have the power to choose to be nice to you, because I have been taught that is a 'good' thing to do and because I think it is good karma, even though I don't really feel like it. So my behaviour to you is very contrived and calculated and self-conscious. I would call it 'impure' because it is not spontaneous goodness on my part - it is the result of a somewhat convoluted thought process. Your dog, on the other hand, probably just loves you, really loves you. So doggy trumps me, because his feelings are pure and not duplicitous, whereas mine are. That's how humans are. We probably have too many layers of white matter in our brains.

Another thought I have had is that, regarding humans, it mighn't have been a matter of 'survival of the fittest' but 'survival of the most devious and/or diabolical'. Look at our current Prime Minister - he would have to be the most aggressive and scheming man to ever hold this job. And why does he have it? Because he has played his politics hard and dirty. So this is how humans are evolving and I think we should be a bit worried about it. Is might always right? Look at North Korea. They guys with the guns win, but is that where human evolution really should be going? I certainly hope not!

Aria:

17 Feb 2014 12:29:57pm

I'd say it makes the most sense to adjust the rights of other living organisms depending on their sentience. Although this raises sticky questions about how we quantify sentience, it is more reasonable than silly polemics like "You destroy mosquitoes, therefore you are immoral" or "We are apex predators, therefore we can do anything and everything to other sentient beings".

Yes we are apex predators - I am therefore a bit confused by arguments for veganism from an animal rights standpoint. Natural systems do not contain some sort of inherent morality standard that humans defile - they consist of predator-prey relationships at all levels. It's also undeniable that species that display more human qualities enjoy more support - probably because we measure sentience relative to our own.

At the same time, it's coming to the time when we should move beyond this standpoint. We as a species are capable of manipulating natural systems on a level far beyond any other species. We possess a level of sentience which allows us to think about things beyond merely an instinct to eat, avoid being eaten, and breed. I said earlier there is no inherent morality that we must obey. But I think that most people agree that being in this position, we ought to have some guiding ethical system in the way we live our lives (this is of course why we have set up societies and everything, rather than viewing each other merely as competition for our next meal).

Aria:

17 Feb 2014 2:25:25pm

"I think that should read "we are apex predators, therefore we eat other animals" I don't think anyone is arguing the "anything and everything" part."

I was pointing out the extreme position. "We are apex predators, therefore we eat other animals" is viewpoint I have said I find perfectly reasonable. I would be pleasantly surprised if nobody argues the "anything and everything" part. There's often no end of extreme positions in all the debates I see in these comments sections.

"What does sentience have to do with it? Guilt because they "know"?"

Sentience is in it because that's the basis of our behaviour towards each other. Theoretically, I don't have any reason to believe anyone else other than myself is a conscious, feeling, sentient human, because the limit of my absolute knowledge is "I think, therefore I am". However, we find it reasonable that we are indeed sentient humans and not brains in vats in some vague Matrix-like reality. As a result, that conditions our behaviour towards each other because we accept that others feel similar emotions, hopes, desires, pains and fears to ourselves. Likewise, I think it's reasonable that this assumption of consciousness and sentience should extend to species other than our own, but that through observation of their communal structures, they do not possess the same level of sentience as we do.

This is inherently anthropomorphic, of course. We are more likely to consider more sentient that which behaves in a way more like human beings. Thus, it's pretty much inevitable that a chimp gets classified as being more sentient than a tree. In the absence of further evidence to the contrary however, this is what we must work off.

Jimmy Necktie:

17 Feb 2014 3:32:29pm

"I don't have any reason to believe anyone else other than myself is a conscious..."

No. "I think, therefore I am" demonstrates your own existence is the only thing you can prove to a logical certainty (even as a brain in a vat) - the only thing you can *know*. And that reasoning only talks about existence, not empathy or emotion or feeling.

While you point out that some other species may also feel emotions such as empathy, or otherwise demonstrate sentience, that on its own is not enough to make eating them immoral. I would argue that in the state of nature there is no morality, only what is natural. And whatever occurs must therefore be natural, as it occurred within nature (where else?)

"I would be pleasantly surprised if nobody argues the "anything and everything" part"

Clancy:

17 Feb 2014 12:34:11pm

Funny this should be published today. I saw 'Philomena' yesterday (a very sad and inspiring film about a woman looking for her son she was forced to give up for adoption 50 years previously), and it suddenly struck me that our culture routinely does this to millions upon millions of mothers each year without even questioning it. Cats, dogs, sheep, cattle, horses, pigs, etc. Anyone who has actually watched a mare with her foal or mother and kittens couldn't doubt they love and care for them as we do for our young. I've pretty much weaned myself off meat, dairy and fish, but yesterday's insight will be hastening the process.

Yes, many other animals eat animals, but we are one of the few that completely controls the lives of the other animals for our benefit - ants with aphids are the only other example I can think of. And yes, there is evidence that plants are aware, but eating plants does not have to kill the plant, and fruits are actually made to be consumed to spread the seeds.

Maubere:

17 Feb 2014 12:41:58pm

In the not so distant future, vegetarianism will not be an option, due to the wasteful use of diminishing arable land and water required to produce animal protein. I can hear the keyboards going into meltdown now, but India actually exports food.

Jimmy Necktie:

Chrism:

17 Feb 2014 12:43:48pm

Yes, Katrina, I do accuse you of anthropomorphism and of a dangerous kind.

Humans have evolved to be very good at sensing the thoughts and emotions of other humans. Its an important survival trait. Unfortunately it means that we wrongly ascribe thoughts and emotions to other animals and even objects that just aren't there; we see faces in clouds, see a sad family in a random rock formation and get moved by splashes of inanimate paint on a flat sheet of canvas. How so much easier to read things into animals that just aren't there.

Animals have no rights whatsoever other than the rights given to them by nature, which is to simply to live and die by the laws of physics and chemistry. Nature doesn't care if an animal lives, dies or 'suffers'. Why should we?

And what other rights could an animal actually have? Who exists to endow these rights? Humanity? But that puts humanity in the position of God over all other animals, the ultimate statement of speciesism.

There is no evidence whatsoever that any other animal on the planet experience consciousness and therefore none that they experience pain or emotions.

Pain is just information. damage to an animal causes information to be sent along nerve fibres causing evolved responses from the animal; flight or fight, physiological changes to respond to the damage and prepare for action, making noises to warn or attract help. Humans interpret this as if the animal was suffering, but unless you have consciousness you cannot experience pain any more than a photocopier taking action after a paper jam is experiencing pain.

Anthropomorphism is the triumph of unexamined emotionalism over reason and is a poor basis for framing ethical behaviour.

Hamadryad:

17 Feb 2014 3:57:11pm

How does that make us unique? And what powers does this uniqueness confer? The 'right' to appropriate an entire planet, to change the climate and alter the geography, to eliminate tens of thousands of other species, most of which have existed in harmony with the rest of the planet for millions and millions of years? Just because we can recognise our individuality in the mirror, and contemplate our own demise? BFD

Chrism:

The whole idea of "rights" is a human invention. that has no meaning outside the context of humanity.

The idea of the planet or a species or a specific animal having rights independent of humanity is a logical and semantic nonsense.

A 'right' is nothing more or less than a self imposed rule that humanity has chosen to observe. The planet, a species or an animal only has those rights the humanity choses to extend and it may chose whatever it wants.

You ask "what powers does this uniqueness confer?", but that is the wrong question. The uniqueness simply means that it is wrong to attribute human characteristics to other animals that they simply do not have and also that there is no moral basis for extending the rights we confer on ourselves to animals.

Qiao:

17 Feb 2014 5:24:48pm

On the issue of animal consciousness, in 2012 a group of 25 of the world's leading experts on the mind gathered at a conference in Cambridge to discuss exactly this issue. They reached a unanimous verdict that based on all that is currently known in medical science that birds and mammals are in fact conscious beings. Google it, it's pretty cool. May not change your mind one way or another but hopefully can better inform your debate.

MR:

17 Feb 2014 1:15:47pm

I haven't read anything as sanctimonious as that piece in a while. Why is it that the ultra-left fringe is only able to argue a point via nagging the mainstream? For the love of god, please go ahead and take the moral high road... and keep going. In the meantime, I am going to watch a David Attenbough doco on lions hunting wildebeest on the Serengeti, while eating a beautiful piece of beef.

And I do so not because the cow 'was not as intelligent' as I and 'therefore not deserving of moral consideration,' nor because the lion eating a wildebeest somehow justifies my meal, nor any of the other ridiculous 'excuses' you described justify my beef consumption. I do so simply because I am an imperfect human being who likes steak and who does not subscribe to your ultra-idealistic metaphysical view of the world.

MR:

17 Feb 2014 5:55:20pm

Well it seems as though the moderator didn't like the first reply, so here goes another.

1) The article above is essentially an argument for the extension of social equality (and/or opposition to social inequality) to include animals. This is a fundamentally left-wing argument. To argue that "Not eating meat has nothing to do with left or right perspectives," belies a near total ignorance of the meaning of the term "left wing".

2) The opening statement of "Such a myopic view that anyone who disagrees with you, on any issue, must hold a contrary political position" is an example of a straw man fallacy. This is a rather amusing error, particularly given the use of the word myopic.

Benji:

17 Feb 2014 1:26:26pm

Ok, question to all of you; what's wrong with those people (such as myself) who raise their own livestock (Sheep, chickens, fish and cows) keeps them, kills, butchers and eats them on an as needed basis? I will never not eat meat, no matter the arguement (It's too tasty) but I have my own eco/hobby farm, where my wife and I are almost fully self sufficient (some things still need to be brought from Wollies, such as seasoning, sauces, etc). I doubt many other could say as much.

I name all my animals, treat them very well, but it won't ever stop me from eating them when I feel like some fresh meat. I ate Arwen the Cow's rump last night as a roast... very nice.

Jimmy Necktie:

Chrism:

17 Feb 2014 5:32:41pm

There is nothing at all with you are doing Benji, but there would be if you were implying that what you are doing is in any way morally superior what most of us do, source our meat through the normal supply chain.

Benji:

17 Feb 2014 6:34:43pm

Not at all. It's just odd that us carnivores don't care what others eat, how they source it, or how it is raised/killed/etc, but are so concerned with our diet. Lets face it, clearing land for their precious Vegan food is more destructive to the environment than the land clearing for livestock. Farming fact.

Hubert:

We will never be able to live without harming something, be it flora, fauna, or ourselves. Our mere existence means something must make way for (or be) the resources we require to exist (subsist).

This is simply the laws of nature. All creatures, including humans, take whatever they require to exist. If they don't, they cease to exist. Simple.

That said, we are a cruel and oft stupid species when it comes to our environment. We hunt species to extinction. We kill for fun. We try and solve problems by introducing species, whose introduction causes more problems that it solved. In some cases we introduce species for fun (like foxes for fox hunting).

Perhaps one day as a species we will mature and limit or erradicate such behaviours. I doubt it will be any time soon though.

AmberC:

17 Feb 2014 1:31:18pm

When I skim through these comments it's clear to me that so many people want to justify their participation in the cruelty and killing of animals for their own pleasure (not need)...because maybe coming to the realization that this is unnecessary and wrong would just be too difficult to realize? To admit that countless animals have suffered and died because you couldn't go one without a cheeseburger? It's difficult to accept.

I've worked with many different animals one on one and gotten to see that they are truly sentient beings. Each one has a unique and special personality. They can feel pain, sadness, comfort, warm, joy. Who is anyone to deny them a happiness, warmth or a good life?

With heart disease as a #1 killer and cancer the #2, it's even harder to understand this logic of humans defending the killing of animals just for the pleasure of consumption or not caring that they endure horrific cruelty to produce dairy products. It's time that we evolve. We can do better and in turn, it just feels better. Don't you think that knowing that you have eliminated suffering and cruelty from your daily life would feel better? It sure does for me. I am not missing out on anything.

Chrism:

Amber C you say that " To admit that countless animals have suffered and died because you couldn't go one without a cheeseburger... It's difficult to accept. "

I don't find it difficult, and I don't even like cheeseburgers. I don't accept that they suffer either.

Your post is based on your anthropomorphising of animals. You have projected human feelings and sensibilities to animals that simply do not have them. It is an easy thing to do, we have been programed by evolution to do it.

We evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to live in groups of people and hunt animals. Living in groups means we had to become very good at reading each others thoughts and feelings.

Only for the last few thousand years have we, through domestication, began to live in close proximity to animals and we misuse the skills evolution has given us to see thoughts and feelings in animals that aren't actually there.

Jimmy Necktie:

Chrism:

17 Feb 2014 9:58:10pm

I agree, we wouldn't be having this discussion. It's only because we are no longer in touch with the realities of life that the illogical sentimentality and squeamishness masquerading as ethics displayed in this article manages to survive.

People who grow up on rural properties or people living in societies where food production hasn't been sanitised rarely have such precious sensibilities.

Jonathan Carroll:

aGuy:

17 Feb 2014 1:54:41pm

Firstly, the title is offensive. There are many frontiers people are trying to overcome. Species is not one for me. There are frontiers of racism, sexism, classes, space, ocean, sensible political debate, disease and much much more.

No species considers another species on the same level as its own. There may be indifference due to lack of competition or even cooperation between species, but all will reproduce to the detriment of other species. Humans are no exception. The biggest difference is that we are most successful.

And as for the lion eating the inbreeding (there is no alleged as they know how it came into being), I do have once criticism. If we are to teach people about animals, there should be an aspect of a live hunt. No animal eating another is pretty, yet it is natural. We have perverted the course of nature with our modern sensitivities to the point the animals we see in zoos are shadows of there potential selves.

Cats are near the only animal living with humans that still retain and act upon their predatory instincts. In most countries, it would be part of the ecosystem for them to kill birds, rodents and more. Australia is one of the few exceptions.

In the mean time, I am perfectly happy in killing an animal myself so long as the animal is used to the fullest capability and the killing does not threaten the species with extinction.

MildMasanthrope:

Aqous:

17 Feb 2014 2:00:02pm

So it's ok to hijack a plant's natural life systems for our benefit because they couldn't be bothered evolving a brain.

While I think there is something to be said for our treatment of animals I fail to see why we should reject a concept that's been around since the early days of life - getting energy from consuming another life form. The first carnivores didn't come into being because they wanted to be cruel, it was an easier means of sustaining one's self.

Are you suggesting humans are the only animals that have ever sought to exploit other animals for their gain?

rufus t firefly:

17 Feb 2014 2:08:21pm

There's no anthropomorphising in ascribing moral value or interests to animals other than ourselves. It's simply a recognition of an implication nestling inside evolution theory for the last 160 years. We are far more prone to the mistake of theomorphising ourselves in order to maintain an arbitrary distinction between ourselves and other animals that science insight can't sustain. So a rejection of speciesism is a useful corrective, even though this piece was long on passion but fairly short on reason.

However - this ain't the final frontier. Once software is deemed concious, by any means we would ascribe to drawing the same conclusion fro other creatures (other than an arbitrary prejudice for meat based lifeforms) will we have the moral right to unplug the PC? Be interesting to ponder the where the author's prejudices would lie here, although I have my suspicions.

Esteban:

If you really want to get people over to veganism you have to be less radical. When you describe the dairy industry as hijacking the reproductive system of female cows you lose your target market.

You need to promote the health, wealth and environmental benefits of veganism over meat eating to gradualy shift perceptions. Encourage people to have one vege meal a week then two and so on.

Under those circumstances the meat eater will listen to your message and engage with you. With a conceted effort you could reduce meat eating by 5 or 10% within 30 years.

With the approach you have taken in this article the meat eater thinks you are a hopeless joke and will not listen to a word you have said.

Perhaps the attraction of veganism is that you are a member of the enlightened and compassionate minority and deep down you don't want too many new members because you will be a bit mainstream looking?

Scott:

17 Feb 2014 2:13:31pm

While the author has a point - speciesism is definitely a thing - I'm not sure how well it is advanced by the comparisons made to sexism and racism

These "isms" had an historical route in an inaccurate belief in difference - for example, women aren't actually on average less intelligent than men. When as a society we learnt the truth, the old prejudices remained, but they were revealed for what they were - prejudices.

Here, it's a different fight. I don't think we are ever likely to discover that sheep are actually as intelligent as humans. Instead, the fight is to have them considered morally significant despite these differences.

This is a pretty different battle, and maybe it should have different end goals. Talking about the hijacking of reproductive rights being equivalent, when a cow may be incapable of some of the emotional impact it has on a human - such as deprivation of dignity or independence - may be little more than "sweet".

I'll tell you why, because like it or not, 83% of this population are clueless drones who are unable to truly listen to their hearts and think for themselves. A large percentage of the rest are just greed-driven, parasites who unfortunately happen to be our industry and political leaders.

It is so sad that in 2014 so many people have to rely upon tradition, industry influenced media and fairy tales (religion) to tell them what to eat and how to live their lives.

The fact of the matter is that if everyone here took the time to visit a slaughterhouse and/or do some research into nutrition and what your body needs to prosper, the majority of you would decided to reduce environmental impact, your risk of obesity/cancer and ease your conscience by eliminating animal products.

Forks Over Knives, James Wildman, Gary Yourofsky... do yourselves and the world a favour, unlearn all the crap you have been taught and watch what they have to say.

Judi:

17 Feb 2014 3:21:59pm

Thank you Katrina Fox for writing this article, I am a vegetarian and have been for 38 years. My primary school was situated across from a slaughter house and being so young we were not aware back then what was really happening. The smell was something terrible and I often wondered what made me feel sick until I realised it was the smell of death. To me it is pure murder and no one on this planet will ever change my mind.

Melvyn Bowler:

Well put Katrina, but who is going to pick up on that and run with it ?

The rulers of the world don't even care about their own species, never mind about any other.

Profit and power trumps ethics every time.

Why do we still allow animal experimentation?Why do we still allow live animal export ?Why do we still allow factory farming ?And so on.

And they are the obvious ones, never mind the cows constantly producing milk for young that were butchered shortly after being born. Does anybody care about the feelings of these thousands of cows, and if not why not ?

We can healthily do without milk, and many of us do, but once again power and profits is too well entrenched.

And as for the Edgar's Mission farm animal sanctuary tagline: "If we could live happy and healthy lives without harming others, why wouldn't we?"

rufus t firefly:

Jazmyn Smith:

17 Feb 2014 4:30:34pm

Veganism in its ultimate, most pure form, leaves no margin for speciesism. A vegan world is a world where humans do not intentionally cause suffering to other sentient beings. The natural order has been severely distorted - but we are starting to wake up. Have no doubt that veganism is an inevitable outcome - a solution I can only hope we reach out of intelligence and peace, not desperation and despair in the aftermath of Climate Change, economic war or entire populations wiped out due to starvation. Peace & love is a nice enough term to spread around - but it is time to become actively involved.Time to end specisism . Time to be vegan.

Dee Kerley:

17 Feb 2014 4:39:54pm

Well said Katrina! Not well said Nein! If you think it's not harmful eating meat and drinking milk then you should kill your own animals and take babies away from their mothers when they're born - maybe then your eyes will see the truth about where your sanitized food comes from and from who it comes from.

Qiao:

17 Feb 2014 5:00:21pm

Hi everyone, lots of debate (as expected). Over the past two months I have been making the transition from meat-lover to vegetarian. My decision is based on rational and compelling health and environmental reasons. Sure, at the moment my mouth still waters whenever I walk past a burger joint but hey, I deal with it. I'm happier and healthier for making the change and I encourage others to consider doing so too.

For those who have a bit of free time tonight, look up 'Food Inc.' and 'Earthlings' on Youtube. Both are very well made and insightful documentaries on where food (meat AND veg) comes from. It may not change anyone's mind but may help tip you over the edge if like me you were already considering making the change.

Clownfish:

rufus t firefly:

18 Feb 2014 8:46:20am

"You will probably revert to eating meat. 75% of vegetarians do.

The most commonly given reason is poor health."

That % is about right. The exceptions are largely anecdotes rather than evidence. Personal anecdote: my parents were vegetarian for 50 years until medical necessity forced them to return to eating meat. One of the difficulties in the health side of this issue is that most humans can live on just about anything for decades (whether vegan or Maccas) before having to pay a price. And until that point they remain convinced their diet is/was a good one.

The best reasons for vegetarianism would appear to be ethical rather than health based. Which could be resolved by ensuring our meat supply has a good life and a clean death. Which, I agree, isn't the case at present.

mike j:

17 Feb 2014 5:07:12pm

"the bodies of about 250 million female cows are exploited"

"hijacking of the reproductive systems of female cows"

All cows are female. An extraordinary oversight from one who presumes to lecture others about the exploitation of cattle, and a concern from one who presumes to lecture others about sexism, given that hyper-sensitivity to gender is a sure sign of such bias.

Keith Lethbridge Snr:

17 Feb 2014 5:10:49pm

G'day Katrina.

Thanks for your article.

As a naturopath, I always recommend that the best tucker for humans is that which requires no preparation at all. Humans were around for many generations before we learnt about cooking & other processing. So if you're crook (or want to enjoy optimum health) look for the tucker Nature provides. We are attracted to the colours, the flavours & the textures. It's not coincidental. A variety of these foods contain everything we require for good nutrition.

Chrism:

17 Feb 2014 10:11:47pm

You have it one hundred per cent wrong. Cooking preceded Homo Sapiens and our ancestors have been cooking for at least half a million years. Cooking allowed us to partially outsource digestion to the energy stored in dead trees, breaking down starches and complex proteins before we even eat and therefore leaving more energy available to support larger and larger brains.

Homo sapiens could not have evolved if earlier humans had not learned to cook meat and starchy foods. Cooked food is as natural to a humans as pollen is to a bee.

rufus t firefly:

18 Feb 2014 8:54:53am

'Is this the logic?'

I don't think there's much logic on display in Katrina's piece at all. It's heartfelt but it hasn't been thought through. Fortunately the movement she is promoting has many far better argued and supported accounts - some of which deal precisely with the sort of examples and dilemmas you provide. Peter Singer (for all his faults) is an obvious starting point.

Ken Lyneham:

17 Feb 2014 5:19:43pm

In antiquity we started out as mostly vegetarian but when we left the trees and started to forage on the ground, gradually we became omnivorous like many apes today. Our journey into being meat eaters allowed our brains to grow, and us to progress until today, where many of us are thinking it's best if we went back to vegetarianism once more. Just like there are people who think it's barbaric to eat animals there are others who think plants have feelings & can think and it's also barbaric to eat them.

We have laws to protect animals against cruelty, they just need to be enforced.Also to stop cruelty to our animals that are at the moment shipped overseas, ban live export.

Nobody but Australians can be trusted to ensure that our abattoirs act in as humane a way as is possible and if others don't like the way we slaughter animals here, tell them to go elsewhere to buy.

The reason it's so hard to stop live export is because of the love of profit by a few who have the power to continue their live exports. Take that power away from them.

Tiffany Dryburgh:

17 Feb 2014 5:51:27pm

I will never argue for humans to ever completely stop eating meat. I will continue to wish it with all my heart but I am realistic enough to know that humans have always eaten some meat and very likely always will. But never before have eaten so much meat. We eat so much meat now that it requires raising and killing animals on an industrial scale never before required. It is outrageous and inhumane. The hunter gatherers never caused the mass suffering and slaughter we cause.

I would love for one of you critics above to tell me what we have actually contributed to this planet. What have we as a species actually done to benefit rather than damage this earth we live on. I know some of us work hard to help the animals and environments in trouble but given that it is us, the human race, who have caused the damage in the first place it doesn't count for this exercise. Neither does all the wonderful art, music and literature we have produced for our own entertainment and enrichment. Just tell me how we have made this world better, or at least not worse, than when we first split off from the apes. Please tell me.

Chrism:

17 Feb 2014 10:29:35pm

Your questions are ridiculous. It makes no sense to ask what we as a species have actually done to benefit rather than damage this earth. 'Benefit' or 'damage' are human value judgements and make no sense whatsoever outside of a human context.

If humans didn't exist, then the planet would be different. But it wouldn't be better or worse. If one species goes extinct and another arises the planet isn't better or worst, just different. If the climate changes as it has many times in the past and there are no humans, it is not better or worse, just different. The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs didn't make things better or worse just different.

Ana Velazquez:

17 Feb 2014 5:55:16pm

I agree completely with the author. It saddens me to see the opinions of people that think there is a "nice" way to take over the lives of other beings, and a ?nice? way to kill them or turn them into merchandise.The past does not matter. There is a way to live without the torment of those that can?t defend themselves and stand up for their rights.I am one of their voices.

suitlane:

17 Feb 2014 6:25:41pm

"If we could live happy and healthy lives without harming others, why wouldn't we?" ... because some of us are selfish and like to be rude to all kind of life - they can?t change ... and the majority isn?t tough enough to fight back... up to now

Cat:

17 Feb 2014 6:34:36pm

I love seeing these articles starting to pop up, at least the population (human) is starting to bring this extremely important subject to the fore front, exactly were it should be. Katrina , thankyou, however I have learnt a very important lesson in my years of campaigning animal rights. As soon as you mention "meat" you have lost their ears. It is a threat ,to these meat eating homo sapiens, a threat, to their food source. It is a fact of life and it will NEVER completely change, home sapiens like eating meat. So maybe if we all look at how much we consume, as opposed to how much may be necessary , phasing out the big chain takeaways, more education on how to prepare other food. Then there is the hunting aspect (killing for fun), then domesticated animal abuse (100s of thousands) euthanized because of ignorance, some of us light bush fires destroying habitats and the wildlife themselves, some of us want to swim in the oceans without those pesky sharks, some of us like to eat those pesky fins, and then there is some of us that use and abuse animals for entertainment, so you see...it's not all about eating meat and drinking milk, but good grief , next time you grab that carton of milk( with a slight percentage of pus in it ) and throw in a dozen chops (full of fear and toxins) take a moment and reflect on where it all comes from.

Mike (the other one):

18 Feb 2014 2:36:17am

All those years of campaigning for animal rights has probably been a gross waste of your time Cat because you have missed the big picture stuff and gone for the usual band aid. You should have been campaigning for human population control. Over the last fifty years the planet's human population has more than doubled, which of course has doubled habitat destruction and the extermination of endemic species that goes with it. Three and a half billion more people demanding habitat destruction for food, medicine, shelter and infrastructure etcetera.

Have a good long hard think about it mate. I for one don't want to see hunting and fishing grounds (habitat) decimated any further by a few more billion people (regardless of whether I personally use them or not) - it's about balance mate - BALANCE.

Chris AM:

17 Feb 2014 7:00:46pm

There are no animals that can express their views on this topic. There is no 'Rosetta Stone' to be translated to reveal any animal wisdom. There is no 'oral history' to be deciphered (apart from screeches, howls and twitters to aid in procreation and territorial dominance). In fact we will never know what an animal thinks, not because of our shortcomings at being able to interpret animal communications but because animals are incapable of higher thought; despite what vegan activists would have you believe.

Perhaps if an animal could communicate its thoughts it might tell us how much it prefers a short, happy life, ending in 'humane' slaughter? Surely an animal facing either a short existence on a farm or never being born at all (what a vegan future ultimately means for domesticated/farmed animals) would choose life? Although factory farming is not the answer to addressing human demand for meat products.

In fact all the ills of society that we humans have been trying to eliminate for generations are the very things animals routinely utilise as part of their adherence to Darwinian survivalism and selection. Many animals (even so-called domesticated animals) would kill for food, kill to reproduce or perhaps even kill for the thrill in the absence of human intervention, or out in the wild. Many animals eat meat, are ruled by an alpha-male, gang-rape opportunistically, enslave others, or cannibalise. Animal behaviour is controlled by primal, genetically ingrained impulses; if displayed by humans it's called backward and barbaric.

The anthropomorphism Katrina alludes to is actually animal rights activists transposing only a narrow selection of amicable, gentler aspects of human ideals and behaviours onto animals while conveniently forgetting the instinctive brutality that animals have at their disposal. Animals lived short, truly violent lives long before we humans began to mess with their destinies. Less cruelty on farms (or anywhere humans interact with animals) is a good thing; but describing standard modern farming practices as 'cruel' is a typically vegan argument, based on the flawed perception that inside the skull of an animal lurks a human-like consciousness, with human sensitivities.

New laws enshrining extended animal rights could never be supported by actual witness testimony from animals. Previous worthwhile causes like anti-racism have been supported by the testimony of those who were discriminated against. For that matter, why potentially criminalise a segment of human society that would otherwise be productive and fair-minded by all other measures of a progressive society?

Animals deserve their current role in our civilisation; not just because animals need human management but because animals themselves are forever incapable of perceiving/communicating the rights misguided vegan activists imagine that they want or deserve. The citing of other noble causes alongside her rail agains

Ken:

17 Feb 2014 7:09:45pm

So I guess those advocating species-equality renounce the theory of evolution, since human dominance over other species is simply pressing 'evolutionary advantage'. And evolution has no category for such egalitarian morality - natural selection works by the principle of the organism with the advantage wins. So, to hold to both evolution and species equality would mean that your very existence as a member of the dominant species, which, according to Darwin, came at the expense of less-advantages organisms, is morally objectionable.

Jimmy Necktie:

Chrism:

17 Feb 2014 10:34:52pm

Only if you think a woman is of no more account than a chicken. Your argument is quite offensive in truth and shows the moral vacuity of the animal rights crowd. Mindless sentimentality masquerading as ethics.

Dean R Frenkel:

17 Feb 2014 7:21:10pm

This is a good article and congratulations to The Drum for printing it. You wouldn't see this in vegetarian-bashing Fairfax or News Ltd papers. No society can call themselves civilised if they are imposing such immense cruelty on innocent animals. Millions of animals are cruelly sacrificed every year to satisfy the greedy appetites of habitual meat-eaters. The livestock industry is a disgrace and sees animals only through economic eyes. Society is due to evolve its values and remove the barbarity.

Jed:

17 Feb 2014 7:32:34pm

The article is an eye opener. I think that the human race lacks empathy. People just go to the supermarket and don't feel any emotion to anything that is put on the shelves, and how it got there. Yes and it is about free will. We all have a choice. Our culture today is so selfish and self-centred.

Ana :

17 Feb 2014 7:37:25pm

To justify eating meat and support it on the foundation that 'it is delicious' it is just as bad to me as a rapist justifying rape on the foundation of 'it is pleasurable'. Besides, there're many who seem to mock vegetarians and vegans based on the evolution THEORY, which by the way is non-conclusive, let's not forget. And use it as to justify for a fact on why we're allowed and it's acceptable to treat animals they way we do. These are the same people who will parade themselves against the Jewish Holocaust and yet fail to see the resemblance with the animal holocaust is ghastly and even worse they will be say without a doubt one was a crime, but the other is not. How can this be? It'd be nice for them to be consistent and finally make some sense.

Mike (the other one):

17 Feb 2014 7:40:30pm

The difference between the human species and every other species on the planet is not that we have feelings and emotions, or can communicate, reason, learn, or can use tools or have 'spirits'. Those old assumptions are being proved wrong all the time.

The real difference to me is the fact that any trait that you would typically find in any other given species like the hunting trait of a tiger, the grazing trait of a gazelle, the transfer of responsibility to 'someone' else for the raising of its young by the cuckoo, the trait of teasing to death a seal pup that is often observed in orcas or the monogamous relationship of the albatross ...... the list goes on and on but the real difference seems to be that the human species displays all those myriad traits in the one species.

The only conclusion that I can draw from that is that we are never ever going to agree but still the attitude persists that if the rest of the world just thought and felt like me then the world would be perfect. The only logical solution to this situation I can see is to agree to put the 'playground' first and allow each other plenty of healthy space to play with your chosen group and rules, the only real danger being the destruction of the playground which of course is to nobody's advantage.

glen:

17 Feb 2014 7:42:15pm

To eat....or not to eat animals.....that is the question........the answer comes down to perceptions......NEVER hang your hat on a perception, as the next breeze can deliver an unknown fact which may reverse the course of your beliefs........so... To kill or not to kill......

Sharon:

17 Feb 2014 7:53:58pm

We can all choose the path of less harm, particularly in the wealthy western world.

When human choices cause significant pain, suffering and harm to billions of animals, human health and our environment, surely it is a sign of a progressive and caring society to encourage choices that do less harm?

Australia alone breeds and slaughters over 500 MILLION animals each year. Most of these in the most horrendous barbaric factory farm conditions - to increase profits.

One poster has stated that in a uni class survey the vast majority responded that the main reason they ate meat was because they like the taste.

You will not find any credible nutrition guidelines (including NHMRC) that state meat is needed for good health, because the evidence is now clear, it is not. In fact, the evidence continues to mount that the higher meat and animal product diets are actually harmful to human health, and also the environment.

"The human spirit is not dead. It lives on in secret.... It has come to believe that compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind." ~Albert Schweitzer

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. ~Thomas A. Edison

Snufkin:

17 Feb 2014 8:09:25pm

Thanks for your article.Apart from slaughter house workers I have probably done about as much of killing, skinning, butchering and eating my own meat as anyone here. It had a gradual effect on me though, and eventually I decided to stop eating meat altogether. I decided I did not want to contribute anymore to so much unnecessary suffering. "Unnecessary" being the operative word. There is quite a lot of such suffering involved in raising animals for food in my experience. (I grew up on a sheep and cattle station.) It was my job, because I was a boy, to bring in the "killers", select a wether, which was by far the worst part of the whole process, and then kill it and butcher it. Like riding a bicycle, it is something you don't easily forget. Some here might enjoy it of course, but I think many people, especially urban ones, probably would chose not to eat meat at all if they had to kill the animal themselves. Eating animals is not necessary. I know that from personal experience. I don't impose my views on anyone else. In fact, I sometimes find that it is the meat eaters who become defensive when they realise I am vegetarian. Not sure why.Have a good one.

Sharon:

17 Feb 2014 9:07:07pm

Love your response Snufkin.

I spent several of my childhood years in rural Australia and it was the slaughter and treatment of animals on farms that led me to eventually turn vegetarian (it did take years to overcome the social conditioning).

I'll also never forget an article in The Adelaide Advertiser several years ago about a young lad who was showing his prize steer at the Royal Adelaide Show. They had a very poignant photo of him saying a tearful farewell to this beautiful animal he had raised. It was about to be trucked off to be slaughtered as part of the "hoof-to-hook" competition. He was devastated, although he had known it's fate all along. His father was quoted in the article stating that his son "just needed to toughen up."

A quote I came across recently .... "Our job is not to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. Our job is to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless." L R Knost.

Tiger Tim:

18 Feb 2014 8:48:33am

Sorry, this may sound harsh, but what else would you do with a steer? It's whole purpose is to be fatten for market. Else it's just going to stand around eating hay the rest of it's life - farmers can't afford to be charities.

Phil:

17 Feb 2014 8:15:21pm

Why are animals the final frontier of species?

Plants have species, too. It seems like Katrina is happy persecute those species.

Oh, I know, the argument is that you don't need to eat meat to survive. But, you know, you don't need to eat plants to survive, either - so that argument is moot. It's just that anthropomorphism means that some people think you shouldn't eat warm and fuzzy creatures.

Jimmy Necktie:

neil:

17 Feb 2014 8:29:44pm

A nonsense article from a typical misanthropic leftie. Humans are omnivores, only the luxury of western societies with our economic power and the medical and food science that it created makes a vegan lifestyle possible. Try to a be a vegan in a third world country and you will die! Our bodies simply cannot survive without a level of animal protein, whether it be meat, dairy, eggs, fish, insects or western dietary supplements. Some essential amino acids only exist in animal proteins and our bodies are incapable of producing enough to be healthy without supplementation.

If adults wish to risk this dangerous lifestyle that's their purogative, but anyone who inflicts it on a child is an abuser, the child should be removed for their own safety and the perpetrator charged.

Dean:

17 Feb 2014 9:01:33pm

As a practicing fan of polycultural and ecological methods of gardening, I would like to point out to Katrina that there is a huge prejudice towards whatever plant humans, generally 'nativists' call weeds and that prejudice is also applied to any animal that does not live in its 'native' land. I remember listening to an anti-dingo fellow out west putting his point of view that the dingo is not a native animal because it has only been here for 50,000 years! Of course he failed to mention that his race has only been here for 200 years! Katrina, while the disinterested majority continue to not give a damn about their lives, land and communities, issues such as what you have raised will never be given any consideration. I therefore suggest that you are wasting your breath but I wonder to what extent you are taking responsibility for your own impact on earth? Are you vegetarian but depending on a centralised means of supply for your vegetarian diet? For, if you are then the damage you are doing is just as damaging as any animal exploitation is. Maybe your diet is impacting on a third world country, maybe your diet is indirectly or directly impacting on the lives of children in Africa? The only truly ethical way to live on this planet is the ecological way and that includes social ecology. Now, if people are not living in an eco way then so be it but when we take an ethical position then we need to make sure our own backyard (literally) is beyond reproach. "hence the failure of revolutionaries who use words and bullets while remaining dependent on the very system they are criticising". Bill Mollison

frargo:

17 Feb 2014 9:08:27pm

Good on you Katrina for giving nonhumanimals a voice and speaking out against thrill killing of animals, and the live sheep and cattle export trade and intensive farming. The term anthropomorphism is a throw back to less enlightened times and should be ditched. Looking out for animals is like looking out for the environment. You'd think as people became more educated they'd become more caring. But for every step forward there's a step back if there's a dollar to be made.

Miri:

17 Feb 2014 9:31:53pm

Gandhi once said: "first they ignore us, then they laugh at us, then they fight us and in the end, we win." From reading most of the comments here, it seems like we are in stage three of that saying. People are actually defending their habits which support the greatest holocaust on earth, the greatest form of earth killing pollution, the greatest form of addiction, the greatest form of suffering. I sit back and don't know whether to laugh or cry. Most of you here are so deeply in the Matrix that you would do anything to protect it. Read, research, educated yourselves. The meat and dairy industries are killing you and killing the planet. You still want to consume these atrocities? great. But why be their advocates?

reaver:

17 Feb 2014 9:37:35pm

The theory of the militant animal rights mob laid bare- that eating a chicken is exactly the same as keeping a black person as a slave to farm cotton or keeping a woman as a sex slave. And they wonder why the vast majority of the general public thinks that they're not to be taken seriously.

Snufkin:

17 Feb 2014 9:43:20pm

One thing I remember was how cruel it seemed to me as a boy, to kill one sheep in front of another when there were two needed, (maybe at shearing time.) The pen was very small, about 2 metres square. The smell of dried blood and burned bones permeated the place. We kept the uncured skins in a shed a few feet away. They stank too. The sheep were usually left to contemplate their fate for half a day or so because my father claimed it was an "easier" skinning job when they were "cooler." You'd go in, the sheep would both be desperately butting at the wooden enclosure, trying to find a weakness and escape. You'd select one of the poor doomed bastards, grab it by the horns and skull-drag it out to the slats near the gallows. The slats were there to allow the blood to run through. I would have to tie the wether's legs before I could shoot it. My father and everyone else I knew, would simply bend the sheep's neck back about as far as it would go, and pinning the animal down with their knees, stick the sharp point into the jugular, then slice across the throat severing the trachea and hopefully the other jugular with one quick movement. But that still left the spinal cord, which was severed by poking the point in between the vertebrae, sometimes that took a little while. All this time of course, the second sheep would watching his companion's fate. (Animals really do know what is happening. They are not stupid as some here apparently believe.) I refused to do two at once after seeing this as a boy. And I wouldn't leave them in there all day either. I'd do it straight away. It really is quite amazing how one remembers all the little details.By the way, you pick the fattest ones by checking the fat around the stump of their tails.Have a good one.

The Blue Smurf:

17 Feb 2014 9:55:12pm

Speciesism is alive and well. Consider the methods used to kill invasive animals as opposed to what is accepted by society. Speciesism is enshrined in our laws and practiced by many, including those who are supposed to support animal welfare. Should you doubt this consider the RSPCA's stance on wild dog destruction and the so called "best practice". When was the last time anyone was convicted of killing a snake, maiming a fox and so on?

Gigaboomer:

17 Feb 2014 10:48:37pm

No such thing as 'non-human animals'. There are human beings and there are animals. More wonderful fruit of our evolutionarily indoctrinated society. When people like Peter Singer advocate infanticide they are simply taking this kind of thinking to its logical conclusion.

Julie M:

17 Feb 2014 10:49:10pm

Very good article and I'm pleased to see more and more intelligent people question the ethics of harming and killing animals for pleasure (and killing the planet too). It's seems easy to condemn when it's "other" people doing it but when it comes to "our" pleasure, all of a sudden the blinders are on.

The extent of speciesism is evident from the comments under the article. They reflect precisely those predictable and lame excuses cited in the article. There are no valid excuses.

I have never heard a satisfactory response to that simple question cited at the end of the article: If we could live happy and healthy lives without harming others, why wouldn't we?

Peter B:

18 Feb 2014 12:11:53am

While I'm a meat eater I have no problem with the concept of veganism. If I were to have a vegan as a dinner guest I wouldn't have a problem with preparing a vegan meal (Google is great this way), any more than I'd have a problem with preparing a kosher or halal meal for Jewish or Muslim dinner guests. But the fact remains that humans evolved as scavenging omnivores and meat is therefore a perfectly natural part of our diets.

I note Ms Fox describes "...the sentience and complex emotional lives of animals..." as a reason for us to not harm them. But how far can this be taken? If carnivorous animals are sentient and emotionally complex in the way humans are, do they reflect on the deaths they inflict on their prey? Or is it that "they're only animals"?

Ms Fox notes the cruelty of the Japanese dolphin slaughter and the deaths from heat stroke of sheep on a ship (we might also add the cruel slaughter of surviving animals in Middle Eastern countries). I suspect many readers would be uneasy about these deaths, even if they consider the animals lack sentience or emotional complexity. I know I am uneasy. But what I am uneasy about is that the animals suffered needlessly cruel deaths at the hands of humans, not specifically that they died. We can after all reflect that if these animals were released into the wild they would all be likely to suffer deaths just as cruel from other animals or from starvation, thirst, exposure or disease. By contrast, modern abattoirs are able to render animals senseless prior to killing them, giving them an essentially painless death. To me this is an acceptable means of obtaining meat.

Finally, I would respectfully ask vegans and vegetarians: would you eat meat which was synthetically created in a laboratory?

tammy:

18 Feb 2014 1:30:16am

And how do you feel about calves being taken away from their mothers upon birth so moms can be hooked up to machines for their milk. Never to see their baby again unless some day they meet up in the pasture before one of them is sold and sent to slaughter. Those mother and babies long for one another. They feel pain and want to be together but we ripp them apart so we can have milk!!!!! At this day in age we can make our own milf with almonds, rice, soy. We are a nation with mass consumption of ALL animals. We are out of control.

Kais:

18 Feb 2014 2:34:43am

Why concern yourself with the killing of animals when humans are still killing each other everywhere you go. In a perfect & stagnant world humans would protect the earth and all its inhabitance from needless harm or strife, but human society is far from perfect. Morals, Choice and Freedom are things that exist only cause of where you stand in society you live in. try teaching the immorality of eating meat to a starving man. put your thoughts into improving conditions for your own species beofre you worry about others.

Steven:

18 Feb 2014 8:51:10am

Humans have evolved as omnivores, our bodies work best when we have protein from meat and the iron from red meat. Some people choose to live without meat but it means they have to take often unusual steps to eat large amounts of particular plant matter or rely on supplements. While I like meat and see it as normal and natural to eat, I also believe that it should be raised and slaughtered as decently as modern technology allows. I also expect that we are not eating endangered species. 4000 sheep shouldn't die on a ship and chickens shouldn't live crammed in battery cages. That's why we have governments to set rules and regulate. Being vegetarian or vegan is a choice that is not demonstrably healthier or morally better than being an omnivore. You can feel free to exercise that choice, leaving more meat for me, but don't expect me or others to follow your religious like zeal.

Helen:

18 Feb 2014 9:16:48am

I think the nature of so many comments here indicates how our society is clinging to their right to reign supreme over all other animals and maintain their comfortable and luxuriant lifestyles. There is no need for complex justification of our actions nor to determine where we 'draw the line'. Simply, we have the ability to become a more compassionate society, yet many choose not to. This is unfortunate for the many animals who suffer immensely, simply due to a lack of empathy. ?Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.? &#8213; Albert Schweitzer

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